Middling It

vintager

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Can anyone tell me what's the deal with Ap3x these days? I sent them a story more than 10 days ago, it went to "In-Progress" almost immediately (in 2 hours), and has been sitting there ever since, with no bumps or cookies or other goodies.
My guess would be that, having changed to Submittable, they now assign stories to slushies automatically, resulting in ultra-short "Received" periods. Which means that the "In-Progress" status is now completely useless, right?
Is anybody else in the same situation?
 

CL_Hilbert

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Probably. I've read that "in progress" just means some action was taken on your submission. That action could be that someone downloaded it to read it or just that it was assigned to a slusher. It doesn't guarantee it's been read, it just means someone poked it a little.

10+ days isn't a long wait at Apex, btw. My latest one's been stewing for 70+ days now and I've never had a response in under 15.
 
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ACFantasy

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CL: All my previous Apex submissions have been rejected in 4 days or less. Then again, I might just be a bad fit for that market.
 

vintager

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Thanks a lot for the info guys!

10+ days isn't a long wait at Apex, btw. My latest one's been stewing for 70+ days now and I've never had a response in under 15.
Good luck with your story!
70+ days is way too long for a market that allows queries after 2 months.
Btw have you had any kind of bump? Do they bump you now when it goes to an editor, or just when it arrives at the EIC's desk?
 

CL_Hilbert

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My 70+ days is with the editor right now. I got an email about it about a month ago. My status on Submittable never changed, though. It's still just "in progress." (For the record, my previous experience with other submissions on Submittable leads me to think there's no stage between "in progress" and "accepted." I've never seen any other statuses beside received, in progress, accepted and rejected.)

As for querying, I can't imagine it'd do any good. I know it's with the editor, so it's not lost. And I can see on Duotrope that he's slowly putting out personal rejections for stories out around as long as mine. I think it's just a matter of waiting while he winnows the subs down into issues. My previous acceptance there took 80 days, so I'm in no hurry.

EDIT 2-12: It's been 98 days and now I'm thinking I wouldn't mind putting some pep in the slushpile.
 
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Ty Schalter

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According to The Grinder, at least, my sub is officially Apex's eldest. I told myself I'd query if/when it got to that point; on Friday night I did. No response yet, so I'm bracing myself to hear: A) they lost it a second time and/or B) they're not interested. :cry:

Peace
Ty
 

CL_Hilbert

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According to The Grinder, at least, my sub is officially Apex's eldest. I told myself I'd query if/when it got to that point; on Friday night I did. No response yet, so I'm bracing myself to hear: A) they lost it a second time and/or B) they're not interested. :cry:

Peace
Ty

I have a poem there that's been out 60 days. According to Submittable, it's still "in progress." My (admittedly limited) experience with poetry though is that poetry subs always take longer, so I'm still middling.
 

Ty Schalter

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I'm bracing myself to hear: A) they lost it a second time and/or B) they're not interested.

On Monday night, managing editor Lesley Connor (who's been very gracious and cool throughout) told me she'd reach out to EiC Jason Sizemore about this. No news so far, which is certainly better than bad news!

Peace
Ty
 
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Ty Schalter

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On Monday night, managing editor Lesley Connor (who's been very gracious and cool throughout) told me she'd reach out to EiC Jason Sizemore about this. No news so far, which is certainly better than bad news!

A week later, no word (even as the official Apex account tweeted about buying a different story, which subsequently popped up on the Grinder). I can only hope it's still under consideration. Desperately tempted to nudge them here, but if I'm on the verge of a pity acceptance I don't want to turn it into an annoyance rejection!

Peace
Ty
 

Aggy B.

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Does anyone know what's up with Analog? Last reported response on the Grinder is from the end of July and I'm pretty solidly past the four month "you can query us now" mark, but if they are just on vacation or something I'll wait a bit longer.
 

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I briefly made it into the second round at Andromeda Spaceways, which is a victory for me. The story got rejected, but they offered some helpful comments about how the story was interesting but needed a "tiny" bit of editing. How it makes me wish I could tighten the story up a bit (which I did) and resubmit.
 

DetectiveFork

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Does anyone know what's up with Analog? Last reported response on the Grinder is from the end of July and I'm pretty solidly past the four month "you can query us now" mark, but if they are just on vacation or something I'll wait a bit longer.

I'm in the same place as you. I'm debating whether it's worth querying, as they're probably just backlogged. The most common response time (rejections mainly) seems to be about 135 days, according to the Grinder. So a little longer than four months. I'm going to wait at least a couple more weeks.
 

WendyN

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Does anyone know what's up with Analog? Last reported response on the Grinder is from the end of July and I'm pretty solidly past the four month "you can query us now" mark, but if they are just on vacation or something I'll wait a bit longer.
Don't know, but I'm in the same boat.
 

CL_Hilbert

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Have a story out at Strange Horizons that's (so far) stayed there longer than anything else I've ever subbed to them. (It's also not a story I expected to stay this long, since I've recently edited and changed a lot). I'm surprised every day I don't find an R from them in my inbox.
 

DetectiveFork

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Have a story out at Strange Horizons that's (so far) stayed there longer than anything else I've ever subbed to them. (It's also not a story I expected to stay this long, since I've recently edited and changed a lot). I'm surprised every day I don't find an R from them in my inbox.

Dare I ask how long? My rejections from them usually take a week or two. I have one with them now that's just over two weeks. Expect a rejection any day now. lol
 

Aggy B.

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I did query Analog. Response this morning said they are currently responding to submissions sent in March and I should hear something soon. (Mine was in April.)

So for the rest of the folks waiting... apparently none of the folks they been responding to use The Grinder, but responses are going out. :p
 

Aggy B.

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Thanks for checking up, Aggy. Mine was April as well, so I guess I'll just keep sitting tight.

Sure. I always check if it gets too far past the stated threshold. While I'm not especially paranoid about it, I've had stories get lost twice before. (Not at Analog, just in general.) So, now I have a general rule that I wait until they say "It's okay to query after X number of days," I add a few weeks and then, if I've still not heard anything, I check on it.

What was really puzzling me was the complete lack of responses being logged into The Submission Grinder, but apparently that's a coincidence.
 

CL_Hilbert

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If it's any consolation, your story's probably at the editor's desk. Under 20 responses are usually the slushers; anything over 40 generally comes from the editors. (Though they've been doing a lot of 40+ form R's, mine included, so...)