I’ve been looking at my submission stats so far and wanted something to compare them to, so I dug around a little and came up with the experiences of these three science fiction authors (this is just based on a cursory look at their blogs--I may have understood some of the numbers incorrectly):
John Scalzi (soon-to-be-former SFWA President, 9 novels and some novellas, short stories, etc.): Started writing science fiction at age 28, contract signed for debut novel at 33, debut novel published at 35, won John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at age 37 (see full timeline here).
Jamie Todd Reuben (8 short stories): Decided to become a professional science fiction writer at age 21, first story accepted for publication at age 34, second professional story accepted at age 37, third professional story accepted at age 38. Altogether, “14 years, 30 stories, and nearly 100 rejections before [his] first story sale (see full timeline here).
Tobias S. Buckell (50 short stories, 7 novels): No age timeline, but in an essay wrote, “my own record is 24 rejections before selling a single story,” and “I have over 650 rejections logged in my files” (see full essay here).
So, obviously, it would be kind of hard to make any specific generalizations about how long it takes to become a professional writer based on this small, nonrandom, anecdotal sample, but it does give you a soft feel for what may be typical. Dozens to hundreds of rejections over several years or even decades…. Since I started writing in November, I guess I should plan on seeing some success around 2017.
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