Hmm... it occured to me that it was time again to be submitting.
I'm not as thick-skinned as that guy who submitted his story a thousand times before being accepted for publication. Each rejection stings, though the more I collect, the less I feel the impact.
What isn't quite right for one publication, maybe perfect for the next. The difficulty is finding that outlet.
I've spent a lot of hours using Ralan.com, visiting websites, downloading guidelines. I'm astonished at how many stillcomplain that submitters don't pay attention to the guidelines.
One of my rejection letters thanked me for adhering to the guidelines. I thought it strange; after all, don't all new writers worry over whether they've got their submission absolutely right?
Apparently not, given the amount of pleas.
My question has to be why new authors wouldn't pay attention? Is it that they're out to gather the rejections slips for bragging rights? Are they so nervous they skimmed the guidelines? Or is it simply a case laziness?
Why send a sci-fi story to a fantasy magazine? They're not the same, nor is a fairy tale hard science fiction.
I shouldn't care about this. The more rejection of ill-advised submissions, the better are my chances since I'm rather anal about getting it right. If I'm going to be rejected, it will be on content, not layout or whether it fits the parametres. Okay, forget I said anything. Feel free to ignore the submission guidelines, and don't worry, I'll be happy to take your place.
I'm now going to match stories to magazines - I think I'll send out five initially, see how they go.
2 comments:
I didn't know new writers didn't follow the rules of a magazine. I obsessively checked my manuscript to make sure that it matched the guidelines, and I tried to find magazines that fit the story. I didn't just send them into random magazines.
Good luck on your submissions. I hope you hear good news.
My bad. I should have said that I assumed that's what was happening because so many sites commented on it.
I suppose it could have been directed at writers for whom such guidelines are just 'bothersome'.
But given the reply I got from Shadow Realms I was under the impression that they received a lot of submissions that didn't adhere to their guidelines.
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