Aeryn Rudel's Blog, page 34

Submission Spotlight: Regional Preferences

Today we’re talking once again about potentially unexpected elements of submission guidelines. As always, you should read the guidelines completely and carefully every time you submit a story. These articles simply highlight the many reasons why. This Submission Spotlight focuses on regional preferences and how they could affect you if you live outside a market’s targeted region.

1) If you live there, you can submit here. Sometimes a regional preferences is so focused, a publisher will not accept ANY sub...

Submission Statement: October 2019

Finally getting one of these out in a timely manner. Here are my submission endeavors (and results) from October.

October 2019 Report Card

Submissions Sent: 6 Rejections: 8 Acceptances: 1 Publications: 1

I’m still behind on my goal to reach 100 subs for the year. I’m sitting at 69 at the moment, which means I need to slam out 15 subs in November and December to hit 100. I think that’s pretty unlikely at this point, and I’ll end up somewhere in the high eighties (maybe). With 14 acceptances, I’m still withi...

Submission Spotlight: Reprints

This is the first in a new series of posts that will, highlight or, uh, spotlight parts of submission guidelines that might be unexpected if you’ve just started submitting your work. Even if you’re an old hand at the submission game, these are an excellent reminder of why you must always read the guidelines completely and thoroughly. So, let’s kick things off with one of my favorite submission subjects: reprints.

Reprints are a great way to get extra mileage, dollars, and exposure out of your published works,...

Acceptomancy?

I assume you’re all quite familiar with the term rejectomancy (or at least how I interpret it). I’ve spent years and a slightly embarrassing number of blog posts talking about what rejections mean, but what about acceptances? What if we turned our overly optimistic, high-powered literary microscopes on the yeses rather than the nos? Is acceptomancy a thing? Let’s talk about it.

Sure, if you get an acceptance for a story, then, uh, that market likes that story. Two points for Captain Obvious, right? But let’...

Submission Statement: July-September 2019

Getting caught up on these submission statements. Here’s my submission activity for the last three months.

July/August/September 2019 Report Card

Submissions Sent: 16 Rejections: 10 Acceptances: 6 Publications: 3 Submission Withdrawal: 0

This averages out to about 5 submissions per month, which is far less than I’d hoped to send. Six acceptances is certainly nice for a three-month span, and the number of rejections is about what I’d expect (though I did experience a 32-day stretch of no rej...

Futures: A Point of Honor

I have a new story out today called A Point of Honor published as a chapbook by Radix Media as part of their Futures series. It’s a near-future sci-fi piece I’m pretty excited about, and you can check it out (and purchase it if you’re so inclined) right here.

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The United States has instituted archaic dueling codes overseen by a government agency called the Bureau of Honorable Affairs. Victims of slander and libel, among other crimes, can force their tormentors to face them in state-sanctioned...

Weeks of Writing: 9/9/19 to 9/22/19

A couple weeks of writing and whatnot to report.

Words to Write By

One of my favorite authors, Stephen King, recently had a birthday, so today’s quote is one of his.

“When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.”

― Stephen King

I can certainly relate to this having just finished a novel. While you’re writing it’s all details, details, details, and it’s pretty easy to lose the big picture na...

Submission Strategy: Ranking Response Times

If you’ve been submitting short fiction for long, you’ve invariably develop strategies for getting your work out there as efficiently as possible. I have a number of strategies, and the one that follows I use for a brand new story I haven’t written for a specific market. In that case, I generally prioritize which publisher I send a story to based on how quickly I’m likely to hear back from them. This breaks down into four tiers or steps, as follows.

Tier One – Rapid Response

These are markets...

Submissions: The Genre Wasteland

I have often lamented the lack of paying horror markets on this blog, and while I certainly wish there were more paying publishers for horror, I’ve still got it pretty good compared to writers in other genres. You see, I’ve recently been dabbling in crime (not so much mystery) and action/adventure, and, wow, the number of paying markets for those genres is, well, thin would be an understatement. Let me illustrate.

Note, all numbers are from Duotrope (because it’s the service I use), and these...

Weeks of Writing: 8/19/19 to 9/8/18

Way, way behind on these things. Time to catch up.

Words to Write By

This week’s quote comes from Amy Poehler.

“Most authors liken the struggle of writing to something mighty and macho, like wrestling a bear. Writing a book is nothing like that. It is a small, slow crawl to the finish line. Honestly, I have moments when I don’t even care if anyone reads this book. I just want to finish it.”

– Amy Poehler

Though I have never heard likened writing to wrestling a bear, I’ve certainly heard it...