Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

Today's thoughts on writing are about things I can't control: not getting rejection letters. To be fair I started running into this 20 years ago with Academia. Getting that first interview and then...nothing. And academia is very slow so it's nothing to wait 6 weeks and you're there thinking do I do this other one when I REALLY want this place.

I see it all the time in publishing now. A friend just found out he didn't win an award to an award he was nominated for by seeing an award list somewhere. No one had even bothered to send the nominees the list first. I'm sitting around with my files because I've gotten serious enough about short story writing that I have spreadsheets of dates submitted and when I see it's been 6-8 weeks or after they said they'd notify us I go looking. How many times have I been there (all of us been there) sitting around in hope eternal thinking oooo it's been a long time I must be in the top 10! Only to find out the book's been out 2 weeks and no one bothered to reject me.

It's actually pretty dehumanizing. It's enough to make you want to toss in the towel (especially giving the pay scale or worst when it's an actual teaching job) Sometimes you're warned about it. 'we don't have time to reject you.' Fair, it's on me then if I submit and often I do not unless it's a very cool theme or the pay is great. I DO keep score on the ones that don't tell you they're not going to be telling you and just ghost you.

On the other hand right now the two upcoming anthologies the editors are in contact often and that is so reassuring and wonderful and I would write for them again.

So how do you deal with this side of publishing? Any insights? Just roll with it? Grumble a bit (My choice)


OPEN CALLS

Flashpoint Science Fiction 2024 Open Window #2

Terrific Tomorrows

Offshoots: Humanity Twigged great pay but I wish it was a bigger word count

A Killing at the Copa: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Barry Manilow Okay this isn't great pay but what a fun theme

Impressions Volume 1 Check this one out. It's amazing in scope and pay

5 Paying Literary Magazines to Submit to in April 2024

38 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for April 2024

From around the web

3 Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Stakes in Your Story

A Grumpy Millenial’s New Guide to Social Media

Imposter Syndrome: Am I a REAL Writer?



The Delights and Dangers of First-Person Narration

How Self-Published Authors Can Sell Books (and make money doing it)

Book Launch Ideas for a Successful Event




From Betty

Five Ways to Make a Selfish Character Likable

Reconciling Character Choices With Your Plot

Five Plot Questions for Revising Your Manuscript

How Do Cannons Affect Your Naval Combat?

Finding Your Story’s Throughline

5 Simple Ways to Create High Stakes in Your Story

What is Your Writing Barrier?

Ways to Know Your Characters, Part 4- Strengths

First Page Critiques: A Look At The Best Novel Edgar Nominees

Why Writers Should Use Psychology In Their Storytelling

How to Combine Myth with History to Create Historical Fantasy

Character Type & Trope Thesaurus: Psychopath I write enough of them...

Sharing with Purpose: Lessons from Mister Rogers

Deciding between projects? Put your horses in a race

GENRE EXPECTATIONS: WRITING STEAMPUNK AND GASLAMP one of these days I'll finish ANY of my stuff in these genres as I love them but...yeah I don't know what my problem is.

UNEXPECTED TIPS ABOUT WRITING THE LAST CHAPTER OF YOUR BOOK always a challenge

Comments

[ofmonstrouswords]

I deal with the rejection side of publishing by opting out entirely.

I knew ages ago that my first novel was never going to be accepted by a trad pub without ripping it into shreds and making it a ghost of itself, so rather than beat my head against that wall I self-pubbed.

I'm still self-pubbing and while I've yet to have the success I want, I still wouldn't give it up for trad pub. Never in a million years.

Sometimes I play around with submitting short stories or poems to magazines, but I never really expect it to go anywhere and thus am not disappointed when I inevitably hear crickets.

For a while I did dream of getting awards, but after two years of being nominated for the Tiptree (don't remember nor care what they changed the name to), sending my books to the judges (the first year it cost me several hundred dollars in shipping because they wouldn't accept ebooks), and then a) finding out I wasn't good enough when the public long list came out (nope, they don't send you a quick email saying "sorry, you weren't chosen, here's why") and b) seeing what WAS considered good enough....

I decided I don't care about awards anymore at all. It's not worth the heartache, and the accolades mean less than nothing to me with the type of author life I'm trying to cultivate -- the one with a small but mighty, rabid fanbase of ride-or-dies who don't give a fuck about things like "winner of the blah de blah blurdy award" on the book but who will cosplay the characters, send me fanart, and tell everyone they know about this great book they read with the super swoony love interest.

[cornerofmadness]

And that's a very valid approach. The only reason I haven't flipped to self pubbing right now is the marketing. I'm going with indie publishers and even with their help, marketing is a nightmare, practically a full time job.

Awards is a different monster. I have never figured out how some things get awarded (others yes, it's obvious) self pub and indie certainly do have their awards too but I haven't done that in a while, maybe this book. I've made it as far as honorable mention before but on the other hand, like you, I can live without it

[ofmonstrouswords]

marketing is a nightmare, practically a full time job

Super true and totally a valid reason to want to go trad. I admit sometimes the allure of less work in general is tempting, because it is a lot less work to go trad -- they handle a bunch of stuff that's on your plate as a self-pub.

But I'm such a flipping control freak, I can't do it. It would drive me insane to give over that much control to anyone else when it comes to my books.

I have never figured out how some things get awarded

Right? Some award-winners are just...unreadable.

TBH I think at this point the only awards I'd want to win would be really niche, small indie awards for fiction, or an award for poetry. But even then...eh, don't really care.

[cornerofmadness]

Ha someone who's more of a control freak than me. In my case my laziness won out. But seriously they still have me doing more than I want at marketing.

But these days you can do this all yourself and you're right, you have all the control.

I hear you about the awards (but I wouldn't turn down a Nebula)

[havocthecat]

How hard is it to ask an admin to mail merge a form rejection letter together from a list of submissions? HOW HARD?

[cornerofmadness]

I have asked this 1000 times

[ofmonstrouswords]

RIGHT????

Like it should be EASIER nowadays to let people know they've been rejected; we're not using typewriters and the postal service anymore.

[cornerofmadness]

Exactly. Though I hated it back in the day that I'd have to send a SASE and it was never used and I'm like are you just steaming our stamps off?!?

(also I love your Pam icon)