Progress Meter

Arica Travis: Book 1

4074 / 40000 words. 10% done!

Monday, April 27, 2015

Fourth Six Months Statistics (Six Months Late...)

I'm getting really good at delaying these reports.  Last time it was three months late, this time it's six....  The only question is whether this trend will continue linearly or exponentially (I plan on posting the next report today, but we'll see).

From May 2014 through October 2014, I again only finished three more stories.  I submitted twenty-six times to seventeen markets (five times to Drabblecast, twice each to Daily Science Fiction, Goldfish Grimm's Spicy Fiction Sushi, Lakeside Circus, Nature Futures, and the Colored Lens, and once each to Apex Magazine, Bastion, Black Denim Lit, Crossed Genres Magazine, Domain SF, Flash Fiction Online, Pithy Pages, Plasma Frequency, Space Squid, Stupefying Stories, and Timeless Tales).  One of my submissions to The Colored Lens, "The Right Decision," was accepted, as was my submission to Black Denim Lit, "Zertanzten" (forthcoming).  Six rejections included personalized comments (Bastion, Goldfish Grimm's, Lakeside Circus, Nature Futures, Stupefying Stories, and The Colored Lens), and two never responded (Crossed Genres and Space Squid).  The average response time for the fourth six months was 20 days.

Submission Plus-Minus: I started out calling this my "over-under," but I think the plus-minus statistic from basketball better captures the spirit of it (but it's still not really a great fit, so when I think of a better name, it'll likely change).  This number just captures the difference between the number of acceptances I should expect to have based on The Grinder acceptance rates and the number of acceptances I actually get.  For the fourth six months, my submission plus-minus was -0.07, meaning I got just barely below what I should have expected based on the number of submissions I made and the markets I submitted to.  Not bad!  My overall plus-minus since I started submitting through the two years is -1.75, reflecting 4 acceptances out of 5.75 expected (I've still got a lot of early rejections to climb out of).

On to the next six months.