Weirder Tale

After sending in a postal submission of my first short story to Weird Tales back in April, I finally heard back from them today--sort of.

My returned SASE and manuscript were accompanied by a form letter explaining that the magazine has changed hands again, and submissions are closed pending the installation of a new editor-in-chief.

They didn't read my story, but this isn't quite a non-response. I'll figure out how to categorize this business over at Duotrope.

The best part is that I'm finally free to resubmit my first story (the second one has already been out three times). It's gonna need a lot of work, so I plan to wait until Nick's novel push initiative is over before diving into short story revisions.

As always, I'll keep you posted.

From Bronze to Silver

Merrilee Faber was right when she said that Three-Lobed Burning Eye is prompt. They read and rejected my short story within two days of my submission, which has to be some kind of record. Even better, this time I got a personalized response instead of a form letter. 3LBE's extremely rapid reply has been duly recorded over at Duotrope.

Not only did I receive feedback this time, it was unequivocally positive. The editor said that the story was very well written. It's just not what they're looking for at the moment.

I should be able to start looking for another magazine to submit the story to on Wednesday.

Next Stop: Three-Lobed Burning Eye

After meticulous research--okay, I searched Duotrope, I've decided to resubmit my short story to Three-Lobed Burning Eye. To be honest, the Lovecraft reference put them over the top.

In keeping with Nick's experiment, I have stepped down from publications offering pro pay scales to semi-pro. Since my primary goal is to build a portfolio of published short stories, a few cents less per word is no problem.

According to Duotrope, their acceptance rate is about 2 and a half percent (pretty good odds while still having standards). They publish online irregularly over the year and print a trade anthology every other year.

I've got a little editing to do in order to meet their submission guidelines. After that, we wait 90 days and see...