Reaction Time.

There are some wonderful online tools available for researching publishing markets.

These days I use The Grinder. Its search functions make it quite easy to find current markets that align with the story for which I'm looking for a home. I can easily locate data on acceptance and rejection rates, payment, SFWA accreditation and so on. But for me, one of the most valuable functions is the ability to look at a market's response times.

Asimov's has been doing well. Their responses in the past few months have dropped from a few months to a few days. I've heard a whisper Sheila Williams has a slush reader on board now. And although I've now gone from a couple of personal rejections back to form rejections (the new slushreader obviously doesn't understand my work - ha!), it's wonderful to be able to send that piece out again within a very short time.

Analog, on the other hand, is currently still up around the four month mark. They were only a few months when Stan Schmidt was editor, but when Trevor Quachri took over, it shot up to over six months, and for that reason I didn't submit there for a long time.

There's another magazine I've been considering for some time now. It's not pro-level, but has a decent reputation and publishes some good stories by decent names. They don't pay very much - simply a token payment - but I was fine with that. It's not always about the money. Sometimes it's about the resume building.

But I was shocked when I conducted my research and discovered their response time was close to eight months.

Eight months!

Imagine I write a story and send it to them today. Just before Christmas they may respond with a form rejection, saying 'thanks for your submission but we cannot use this story at this time. We wish you luck in placing it elsewhere.'

Now I've had some stories that were rejected six or seven times before being accepted. If every market was like this, my story might not see light of day for five years or more.

On the other hand, let's imagine they choose to buy it. After eight months. It's typical for publication to occur six to eighteen months after purchase. So, it is possible I could sell it and it might be published two and a half years after submission.

All for twenty dollars or so.

Sorry, but an eight month response for a token market is ridiculous.

Yes, writers complain about response times. Publishers complain about writers submitting their stories to multiple markets at the same time. But I think you can see why some do it.

Me? I've permanently crossed that market off my list and choose to submit elsewhere.

Reading And Writing.

It's important to keep up to date.

I recently read an anthology of short stories from a (very) small press.  There was nothing startling about the collection. One story stood out as excellent, a couple I thought were merely OK, while the rest were, in my opinion, quite below standard.

It so happens that I've seen the author of one of those 'below standard' pieces online - bragging about the sale and obviously  very proud. And I have absolutely no problem with that. It's a little unfortunate that in their naivety they haven't recognised the level at which they have been published. I did, however, have a chuckle when the writer started suggesting the story was truly original, completely brilliant and was even talking about major awards.

It was simply obvious to me that the writer hadn't read much SF.

While the writing was fairly uninspired and flat, the real problem was the story was one that I've read many times before. And I picked the ending in the first paragraph or so.

It's important for a writer to know the history of their genre. And to keep up to date.

When I submitted one of my first stories (So Sad, The Lighthouse Keeper) to a well known small press, the editor told me that I'd obviously read a lot and all that reading had paid off. He told me that it showed in the confident and calm manner of the writing and the descriptive prose. He then advised me that the story wasn't done yet, rejected it and broke my heart.

And damn his eyes, he was right. It needed more work.

I try to keep my reading broad. I read a lot of non-fiction, not just science but historical, biographical, travel - anything that takes my interest. Fiction-wise, I read almost anything - stories of all genres and all lengths. I regularly read Asimov's, Andromeda, Analog, and a couple of others. I can even tell you the differences between the purchasing tastes of Sheila Williams, Gordon Van Gelder and Stanley Schmidt.

And don't forget local small press. I read what I can from the markets I sub to. I try to ensure I know what Ticonderoga, Fablecroft and Twelfth Planet are publishing.

After all, if I plan to sell to these markets, I must know what they're buying.