Well, my short story submissions are back up to six. I’ve sent a YA piece I’ve had kicking round for ages to Cast of Wonders, the new YA podcast from Escape Artists; “Castle” to Fantastic Stories of the Imagination; and Brother Blue to Asimov’s. 

Yes, I’ve submitted a novella (albeit a short one – 18,700 words) to Asimov’s, knowing that they only take one per issue, at most, and that I’m competing with the best SF writers in the world. 

It’s an act of chutzpah, but I don’t want to pre-reject my story on their behalf. I think it’s some of my best work so far. 

Automation vs dissent: an SF story. 

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/one-star

Here’s how things are looking for the Makers of Magic themed single-author collection that I talked about the other day. 

Of course, my editor may come back to me and say that the three stories I have with her are no good, or the market may not want them. But all going well, you should see this collection around the middle of next year. 

I’ve just recorded my hundredth submission in The Submission Grinder (thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com). There were a few submissions I made prior to using it that I didn’t transfer across, so the real total is a little higher. 

Out of those, I’ve so far made 12 sales. My sense is that I’m beating the industry average there. 

If you’ve made two or three short story submissions and got form rejections, and are wondering if you should stop, think about these figures for a bit. 

I have a long-term project, a single-author themed collection of magic-user stories. I call it Makers of Magic. The plan is to include 13 stories, each about a different kind of magic user. 

I just checked and updated the spreadsheet that I use to track progress on this project. I’ve sold six out of the thirteen stories, and the latest that the rights revert is at the end of April next year (which means that the collection won’t come out before May 2017 at the earliest). 

Two more are on submission currently, three are waiting for rewrites, one is in progress, and the final one is incomplete (meaning I’ve written up to the middle and haven’t thought of an ending yet). 

I’m finding it motivational to work towards this collection. And since two of the stories have turned out a lot longer than I expected, it’ll be a decent length (in excess of 60,000 words). I’ll keep you posted. 

Wow, this has been a good sales week for me, and it’s only Wednesday. Everyone must be clearing their backlog.

This morning’s email contains an acceptance from Farstrider magazine for my comedic story “Mail Order Witch”. They’re the twelfth market I’ve submitted that story to (a personal record). I’ve had four form rejections, six personalised rejections, and I think I withdrew it once because the market concerned had stopped responding to communication. 

Now I have the Best Problem: I only have three stories still out on submission, because I keep selling them. 

Time to write some more. 

Here’s a chance to be an “early reader” for Digital Fiction. You don’t have to review or anything (though I’m sure it would be appreciated).

Digital Fiction specializes in reprint anthologies, so all the stories will have been previously published in pro or semipro markets.

Directly delivered to your Kindle.

http://digitalfictionpub.com/blog/join-the-digital-fiction-pub-free-ebooks-readers-list/

Woohoo! Another pro sale.

The new magazine Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores has accepted my story “Gatekeeper, What Toll?”

Achievement Unlocked: First professional sale!

I’ve known about this for several months, but had to keep quiet about it while the editors decided which stories would be in which anthology. Now I can announce that my SF story currently titled “One-Eyed Man” will appear in Futuristica Volume 2 in November.

Two and a half years ago, nobody had ever agreed to publish one of my stories. I hadn’t even written more than a couple of stories. A year and a half ago, I made my first semi-professional sale. The rest consisted of basic ability, a little knowledge (increased by study), hard work and persistence.

I knew I could do this. I had got enough rejections of the “Really close, but no” type that I knew it was a matter of when, not if, I could cross that line and make a pro sale. But now it’s actually happened.

And I know I can do it again.

So, my end-of-year short story stats (assuming no surprises in the next 12 hours):

2014: 44 submitted, 1 acceptance, 20 form rejections, 14 personalised rejections, earnings $0.00. (The accepted story was paid for in the following year.)

2015: 52 submitted, 8 acceptances, 28 form rejections, 13 personalised rejections, earnings $354.09.

I have five pending submissions, of which one is a rewrite request that I hope will become another sale. 

I started seriously submitting at the beginning of 2014, so that gives you some indication of where hard work and determination can take you in a couple of years. Not far, in some ways, but a long way in others.