Stats by the numbers:
Over six months submissions: 200 plus
Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Creative Non-fiction
Accepted pieces so far: 17
Creative Non-fiction: 4
Poems: 12
Fiction: 1
Writer Retreats: 2
Workshop Fellowships: 1
Withdrawn submissions: about 60
Rejected: about 70
Still active 60ish
I am finally getting around to rounding up my stats. I kept putting this off, because I was in a two-month slump with rejections coming in thick every day. And I didn’t feel like looking at my stats, but here goes.
At that point, I had six acceptances. Six is good, right? The way it was going, I felt might not get any more. Then I got an acceptance via email. I was a bit surprised, because I thought that journal had rejected my poems by ignoring me as they do sometimes. It had been a very long while since I submitted. But yay, I had another acceptance. Then I got to do my favorite thing, withdraw my work!
My attitude is, too slow suckers. But really, who is the sucker? I am the one giving these lit mags $3 to look at my work.
So I went to submittable, referenced my little spreadsheet, and withdrew the poem from the other places I submitted it, maybe seven. Then something interesting happened. I started to get acceptances for the lit mags where I had just withdrawn my work. They were accepting some of the poems remaining in my packet.
A mentor of mine, who is a whirling dervish of submissions herself, told me about this phenomenon.That sometimes when you withdraw poem, editors will take a look to see what else is in your packet.
First I got one acceptance. And later that day I got four more. What? Is such a thing possible? I had almost doubled my acceptances. I went from six accepted pieces to eleven. That was six acceptances in 48 hours. Hot Damn!
If you’re curious, I used Clifford Garstang's Literary Journal Ranking for Nonfiction, Poetry, and Fiction as a guide for my submissions. And a friend of mine gave me her excel spreadsheet to track submissions. Lucky for me since I pretty much hate excel.
The rejections kept coming, almost daily. When you submit this much, it’s to be expected. But they became easier to take after my 48 hours acceptance-o-rama. Some rejections still really hurt. Especially, the things I thought I was a perfect fit for. Since then, I have got some more acceptances. I have withdrawn more work, but so far, the acceptance-o-rama has not repeated.
But I have done well. I submitted to 200-plus places. I had seventeen pieces accepted for publication. I was accepted to two residencies and one workshop scholarship. I withdrew about 60 pieces and got about 70 rejections. But stay tuned. I still have about 60 live submissions, and I’m strapped in for a wild ride.
My submission philosophy is why not try, and why not me? Do you have a submission philosophy?
About 10% acceptance rate, pretty good!