The Cord #1

I'm trying out my hand at comics....  Mostly so I can keep up on drawing, but who knows.  I'm adding the link to the Wordpress site (no good comic templates in Blogger) to the Outlet menu, and it is at (dun dun dun...):

thecordcomic.wordpress.com.

Or just click the picture:

Which Markets Are Most Likely to Accept Your Work?

So I'd heard The Grinder referenced a couple of times on different sites, but I never got around to checking it out until today.

And it's hecka cool.

Basically it's the freeware replacement for Duotrope, giving writers a way to compare markets based on statistics reported by other writers.  I'm tagging this post under MarketWants because The Grinder basically tells you which pro markets want more submissions.  As a matter of course one of the primary statistics reported on the site is the acceptance rates for the various markets.  Which makes it easy to rank them (based on reports over the past 12 months as of 2/8/2014, with markets The Grinder identified as "closed" and markets with sample sizes fewer than 5 excluded):

PUBLISHER	N	Acceptance Rate	Mean Response (days)
Nature	74	21.62%	36.47
Grantville Gazette: Universe Annex	25	8.00%	67.28
Daily Science Fiction	906	7.28%	21.62
Cricket	15	6.67%	106.8
Beneath Ceaseless Skies	196	6.63%	38.15
AE	67	5.97%	104.4
Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show	275	5.45%	59.88
Analog Science Fiction and Fact	121	4.96%	163.97
EscapePod	149	4.70%	29.51
Flash Fiction Online	205	3.90%	34.84
Asimov’s Science Fiction	396	2.53%	57.95
BuzzyMag	282	1.77%	45.36
Strange Horizons	739	1.22%	16.31
Clarkesworld Magazine	746	1.07%	3.42
Writers of the Future Anthology	187	1.07%	85.37
Apex	332	0.90%	18.88
Lightspeed Magazine	409	0.73%	3.55
Cicada	43	0.00%	94.49

I was totally surprised (CAVEAT: the samples these numbers are based on are by no means random, and are likely heavily influenced by self-selection bias; that said, it's a whole lot better than nothing).  Nature published more than 1 in 5 of the manuscripts they received last year (they publish once a week, and The Grinder reported that 16/74 got accepted, which means it represents about 16/52 = 31% of all stories published last year; not bad!).  I have to admit, I hadn't really considered submitting to Nature because they state in their guidelines that their stories are "usually commissioned," but I doubt that any writers working by commission would come to The Grinder to report that their work was accepted....  Who knows, but the takeaway for me is, I'm going to start submitting to Nature.   Another surprise was the Grantsville Gazette: Universe Annex.  They published 1 out of every 12 or 13 submissions.  The sample size is somewhat small compared to other markets (N = 25), but this is a market I didn't even know existed (Grantsville Gazette--not Universe Annex--is also listed in The Grinder with an acceptance rate of 0%; I wasn't even considering them for my MarketWants analysis because of their quirky rules).  So anyway, it's useful information, if nothing else. Daily Science Fiction and Beneath Ceaseless Skies are good bets, as is Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, which surprised me at better than 1 in 20.  Analog, EscapePod, Flash Fiction Online, and Asimov's follow close behind. Another big surprise was that Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Apex, and Lightspeed are such longshots (about 1 in 100).  I've submitted to all four of those markets (several of them multiple times) because I thought they were better bets than premiere markets like Asimov's, Analog, or Intergalactic Medicine Show.  Meanwhile, I wrote off the Writers of the Future Anthology because I thought the odds were weighted way too much against you to make it worth the effort.  It beats or matches the acceptance rates of 3 out of the 4 1-in-100 markets I've been submitting to.  I was just totally, totally wrong. This is exactly what makes a site like The Grinder so valuable.  It strips all the distractors and red herrings away, letting you see just the bare numbers.  And it increases your chances of publishing by about 20 times.

Star*Line Issue 37.1 Is Live

My first published poem went live today in the Science Fiction Poetry Association's flagship publication, Star*Line.  All in all it was a really good experience (I found out about the acceptance on my birthday, no less).

Second Six Months, 2013, and All Time Statistics (Short Stories)

I haven't been doing very good at keeping up on posts, but that's what New Years resolutions are for....  Here's a summary of my second six months, 2013, and all time stats (related: First Six Months Statistics):

Second Six Months Statistics:

From May 2013 through October 2013 I only finished three more stories, though I worked on rewriting several others.  I submitted stories ten times to nine science fiction magazines(twice to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and once each to Cicada, On The Premises, Apex, Strange Horizons, Flash Fiction Online, Asimov's, Daily Science Fiction, and Electric Spec), none of which were accepted for publication.

Of these ten submissions, nine got form letter rejections, and one got a rejection email with comments (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine).  I finally got an email from 365 Tomorrows (submitted in December 2012) announcing that due to some technical error a number of submitting authors had never received a rejection notice.  The average response time for the second six months was again 21 days.

Ultimately, my prediction after the first six months that I would see a few more acceptances in the second six months proved to be premature....  But hopefully 2014 will bring more luck, and more productivity on my part.

2013 Statistics:

In 2013, I submitted 22 stories to science fiction magazines.  Of these submissions, 19 received form letter rejections, one received a rejection with comments, one was rejected at the final stage, and one was accepted.  Average response time was 23 days.

All Time Statistics:

Overall, as of this writing (November 2012 to December 2013), I have submitted 32 times, with one receiving no response, 26 receiving form letter rejections, two receiving rejections with comments, two rejected at the final stage, and one accepted.  average response time (excluding the one with no response) was 21 days.

Arbeitswert: The Value of Work

I've been thinking about why I chose to write speculative fiction out of all the available genres out there.  Ultimately, I think it has more to do with my childhood obsession with science fiction than anything else, but I've come up with another rationale.  I think speculative fiction gives the writer a unique opportunity to get people to look at the world from a different perspective than they would otherwise.  So the hard part is just figuring out what perspective you want your readers to see.

You could argue that a story doesn't need to have anything beyond "likeable protagonists undergoing engaging conflicts," but I think writers of such stories are missing an opportunity.  Why bother writing about an alternate reality if it doesn't make readers look at their own reality differently?  I think sometimes authors get so hung up on "world building" that they forget to give a purpose to the alterations they make, like the speculative elements are only there to remind us that oh yeah, this story takes place in another world.

Anyway, the point of it all is that as I've thought about what kinds of themes I would want to pursue in my writing, one thing that keeps standing out to me is the value of work.  Not the value of the products of work, but the value of the work itself.  It's something that I think is hugely important, but that I don't think gets as much attention or appreciation as it should.  I wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo last year, and it, being my first attempt at writing, was of course terrible.  Though it did allow me to get that "first" novel over with, and though I did learn a lot about writing, I think there is a lot of value in just the writing of the novel itself.  Even without the written product that resulted, just the act of creating something from nothing is pretty cool, and it's worth something beyond whatever dollar figure anyone could attach to it.

It's something I've had a hard time articulating, which I suppose is part of why it occupies my mind so much.  There's not even a good English word for it, as far as I've been able to find.  The closest I've been able to come up with is a German word: Arbeitswert, which translates literally to "work value" (not to be confused with the Marxian economic principle).  This is something that I hope to write more about in the future, so I'll be using the Arbeitswert tag when I do.  Hopefully I'll be able to find ways to explain it without having to resort to more German....

BuzzyMag Now a SFWA Pro Market

It looks like there's a new addition to the SFWA Pro Markets list.  BuzzyMag has met the criteria to become an SFWA qualifying market, and correspondingly will be included in my MarketWants analysis.  Which I will get around to any day now....

Kindle Edition of Mad Scientist Journal Summer 2013 Is ALIVE

So...pretty cool.