One of the two stories I finished this morning--the 3,700-word noir crime fiction story--has already sold. About three hours after I e-mailed it to the magazine I received a contract.
This is one of those right-place-right-time sales because the editor is going to use the story in the issue being put together right now.
This is my 10th acceptance of the year. I'm averaging an acceptance every 4.6 days.
5 comments:
That's amazing. I'm still waiting for my first acceptance of the year. Of ccourse I've only submitted to about six or seven places, but still...And even then, none of it will be paying work.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but do you think name recognition has anything to do with your acceptances? You've been writing and submitting a long time and I wondered if editors tend to go with authors that they know well and have worked with before.
I'm certain name recognition plays a small part in most of my sales because I tend to submit more to publications that have accepted my work in the past than to publications that haven't.
For example, eight of this year's ten acceptances were snapped up by publications that have previously published my work, one was by an anthology editor who invited me to submit based on my participating in a panel he organized and led, and one--a reprint--was accepted by a new publication and I have no reason to believe the editor knew me from a hole in the wall.
I guess building a working relationship with editors and publications is just as important to getting published as writing well. And writing well opens the doors to new markets. Thanks, Michael, I appreciate your willingness to share information about this crazy business.
I'm still waiting to send out my first story of the year. I have put together a couple of interviews for CrimeSpree, but no fiction yet. Bravo, and here's looking at #11.
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