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.

Rejected by Asimov's, glass still half full

Last Wednesday I received an e-mail from Asimov's stating my short story Sailing to Eden had been rejected.  The content of this message was encouraging, however:

Dear Chuck,

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.

Sincerely,

Sheila Williams, editor
Asimov’s Science Fiction
Someone told me Sheila is the top editor for Asimov's, and for her to get it the story would have to have been passed through several levels.  It could just as easily have been published!!!

I find this really encouraging.  I have a rank list for this story and am sending it to the next professional publisher on it.

My meteoric rise to fame as a writer is behind schedule

I was about to say I hope 2013 doesn't suck as bad as 2012.   After more thought, maybe I should say I'm hoping for better things in 2013.  Let me explain.

Let's just say my meteoric rise to fame and fortune as a writer is not going as fast as I had hoped.  I have written a novel, but the main character's voice in my novel Bear Dreamer was not a strong one.  The novel would probably never be accepted for publication anywhere in its current condition.  To this point, my greatest accomplishment  is getting three shorts accepted for publication in the period between January 2011 and May 2012.  One of them sold for $20 and the other sold for $10.  The third is supposed to sell for $40 but it hasn't appeared in one of their publications yet.  So much for riches and success.

There is reason for optimism, however.  The most recent draft of Bear Dreamer has character voices that are actually interesting to follow.  It's in what I hope to be the final draft, then it's time to consider publishing options.  My flash fiction piece was almost accepted by a 5c per word publication.  My short story The Last Hour on Earth has been shortlisted by a semi pro publication and then shortlisted even further.  I'm persistently following up on the short story that hasn't appeared in publication yet.

Maybe this year will see more success than last year.  Then again, maybe I'll just end up with a taller stack of rejection notices.  We'll see.

-Chuck Robertson

 

 

 

Grade Inflation on Amazon?

There are a number of people who have works that have appeared on my online critique which they have self published on Amazon.  I thought I'd get onto Amazon and see how they are doing just for kicks. 

I was surprised to see the number of five star reviews.  Everyone I looked at had more five star reviews than any other rating.  Maybe the people I am looking at are the greatest collection of writers ever assembled, excepting maybe the Ex-Patriots of the 1920's.  More likely, the reviews on Amazon are greatly inflated.

It's inevitable that some of the people I'm talking about will read this post.  Don't worry, I'm not slamming you.  In fact, I think most of the people I've helped with the review process have put a lot of hard work into their novels and they are quite good as a result.  Problem is, if you give everything a five star review, then a five star review ceases to have meaning.

Think of the star rating as a bell curve.  The most common rating should be three stars since it would be at the middle of the curve.  Three stars are not bad, since these writers are competing with a number of other hard working and highly determined people. 

Consider it this way.  Suppose you study Physics at Harvard and earn a high C or low B GPA.  You have accomplished considerably more than a student who studies Physics at his or her community college and gets an A average.

I've seen a lot of pretty good novels in my critque group, most of which I think are solid three or four star efforts.  In my opinion, that is still an excellent rating because, anyone crazy enough to undertake the task to write a novel is dedicated enough to develop the talent and skill to create a good one. To me, five stars are only for the very best novels out there.  I've seen a couple novels on my crituque group that really stand out, and I literally mean a couple.

I think the reviews on Amazon are inflated for two reasons.  First, people want to be nice. They want to help whoever wrote the novel they are reading the novel and give four or five stars to anything halfway good.  The problem with this is, they indavertantly water down the value of each star they give for the review.  It becomes that much harder to pick out the really outstanding works from those that are merily pretty good.   Second, and this is the more sinister reason, a lot of people cheat by having friends write fake five star reviews or even creating fake identities and writing their own. If you are one of these, shame on you. You're ruining it for everyone.

(If you are someone I know, don't worry, I'm not accusing you.  The fellow aspiring writers I am close to strike me as honest people. I know you have gotten your accomplishments through sweat and rejections. It's the bad apples I'm talking to.)

Like most people on here, I'm working on novels of my own. When I finally finish my first novel, I was considering posting it on Amazon too, if only to see what kind of reviews I get.  My goal is to learn and rewrite until I have my work to what I consider a four star effort. Maybe after a couple more years of writing experience I can get something that approximates a five star novel.  If all I get are three star reviews, it would be a sign I have farther to go than I thought.  If I get one and two star reviews, I think I will put a paper bag over my head and use a pen name from now on.

 While I'd like to succeed on Amazon like everyone else, I want only the stars I've earned.  I'd rather have an honest three star review than a tainted five star one. 

~ Chuck Robertson

My First Autograph Request

Someone in the office I work in is leaving in a couple weeks and his co-workers wanted to buy him a parting gift.  He's a fan of science fiction and likes apocalyptic literature in particular.  A fellow co-worker who knows I write and thinks highly of my writing suggested a short story I'd written that was published in an anthology of apocalyptic stories.  They ordered a copy of that anthology on Amazon for him.  What's really amazing is, they actually asked me to autograph it for him!

 

They actually thought I was bestowing an honor on them by agreeing to autograph it.  In truth, the honor was mine.  This is what all us writers live for -  recognition from fans.  There is no greater feeling than to hold a book in your hands that you have written in part and have someone ask you to autograph it for them.  Okay, it was only a minor publiscation and I only got $20 for the sale, but the exposure is easily worth ten times that.

I've been writing seriously for about three years now and have learned to handle personal rejections like "Your story nearly made the next cut" or "We almost passed it on for the entertainment value alone."  Even the generic "Your story did not fit our needs at the moment" is something I'm used to by now.  But I got one today in which the editor said " Ian's (my main character's)  voice didn't quite come alive for me, and the setting wasn't as vivid as I'd prefer." That devastated me so much, for two hours or so I felt like I was ready to give up writing then and there. 

Character development had become job one for me, and I wrote a couple novellas and short stories with the voice of the main character as the top priority.  Also, I began rewriting my first novel, this time with a strong main character's voice in first person. It looked like I was making real progress.  Critters for the other novella and the rewrite of my novel commented that the voice of the MC comes across very well. Thus, when I received the line "Ian's voice didn't quite come alive for me" it was like a blow to the heart.

So, have I failed as a writer?  In all honesty, I did not try to get inside my MC's head as much as I did in the other stories I wrote during this period.  It was by design, as I imagined this story as more of a plot-driven and faster moving story.  Was I wrong in writing it this way?  Should the writer always get as much inside the head of his characters as possible?  Or, should I just forget what happened today and send the story off to someone else tomorrow?

Anyway, I've ranted enough.  Please excuse my narcissism, I get quite self-centered when I get depressed about my writing.  I'll be back to reasonable sanity in a couple days (I hope).  I know people who read my posts have given me more support than I could ever hope to return, but I'm still dying to know about your opinion on these experiences.  Can someone please give me some objective feedback on what I've just experienced?

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.