Nobody remembers my rejections—except me.

About two years ago I finally got up the nerve to start submitting some of my short stories for publication.  I surprised myself, managing to sell three stories in the space of eighteen months.  The markets were barely paying--$10 to $20 per sale, but they were still sales. If I had been a crackhead, I still don't think I could have gotten a greater high than receiving that acceptance e-mail, with a real editor telling me how much he or she liked my story.

After clearing that milestone, I thought I'd try for semi-pro and pro markets.I knew the moment I decided to submit my stories to tougher markets I'd get a whole lot more rejections.  For the past nine months I've been watching rejection after rejection come in.  My Duotrope acceptance rate has fallen from seven percent to below three percent, and drops further with each rejection.  I'm watching my e-mails with white knuckles, hoping for that one acceptance that will make the long wait worth it.

I submitted my story The Last Hour on Earth to one of my favorite online magazines, NewMyths.com, and watched for five months as it filtered through several rounds of cuts, until I got the message  "Thanks for letting us read this. While it made it to our final round of cuts, in the end there were a few stories we liked more."

Asimov's has been my favorite mag since I was a teenager.  In an effort to fulfill my lifelong dream of being published there, I submitted my hard SF story Sailing to Eden.  Two months later, I got the response "Thank you for letting me see "Sailing to Eden." The story is nicely done, but I’m afraid it's not quite right for me. I look forward to your next one, though."

I submitted a darling piece of horror satire The Count to a 5 cent a word publication.  They replied "While we all enjoyed the piece, we opted to go with other stories."

Please forgive my self-centered narcissism, but I think you get the idea.  I would like to think that with just a little more luck, I could have had my first sale to a semi-pro or professional magazine.  It doesn't quite quench the discouragement though.

Trying my hand at rejection notices

I’m finding getting stories published to be somewhat difficult.  Since not every magazine needs that story about a transgender vampire in a spaceship on a collision course with a black hole, I thought I’d switch to something more lucrative.  It occurred to me that rejection notices are the one thing every publisher needs lot of, so I thought I’d try my hand at creating some of those.  Here’s what I came up with:

Rejection Notice #1

We know you haven’t submitted anything to us for publication, but at ACME Publishing we pride ourselves on an efficient submission process.  Rather than have you submit your work and make you wait ninety days for the inevitable rejection notice, we are sending you the rejection in advance.  That way, should you decide to submit to us, you will not have to wait to know the status of your submission.

We wish you the best of luck with submitting your work elsewhere, where you have an equally hopeless chance that it will ever be accepted.

Rejection Notice #2

We have decided to pass on your novel submission.  It is said in a writer should never take a rejection personally, but in this case the rejection is personal.  We hate your guts.  As soon as we saw your name attached to this manuscript, we immediately deleted it from our hard drive without even reading it.  After that, we gave the drive that received your e-mail a low level format so there was no chance of us ever opening your attachment again.  In fact, as soon as our head editor learned you had submitted a novel to us, he went into an uncontrollable rage and began throwing furniture out the window. We hope you die a horrible death and then burn in Hell for eternity.  Have a lousy day.

Rejection Notice #3

We regret informing you we will not be publishing your story.  It simply was not up to our standards.

You have undoubtedly been told that the worst that can happen when you submit a story is you get a rejection notice.  If only that were true in this case.  Your story sucked so bad we have decided to ban you from submitting any stories to us ever again.  Furthermore, we are contacting every publisher we can think of to arrange a world-wide blacklist of your works.  Not only that, but we are retaining a Buddhist priest.  If you are reincarnated as another writer after you die, he will determine your new identity so we can blacklist that individual as well. 

We wish you luck in your new career field.  You will certainly not stink as bad at it as you do at writing.