What I’ve Learned from 100 Submissions

I just made it to the big 1-0-0 everyone! No I’m not that old yet. 100 submissions. Lifetime. And by lifetime, I mean since late 2018 when I first started sending them out in earnest. I know, I know. What can I say? I’m lazy. But somehow I made it to 100.

It all started with one submission several years ago…

Actually it was 2015. Someone I followed on Twitter announced they were looking for stories for an upcoming anthology. I submitted one, my first submission ever. It was accepted and gave me my very first story writing credit. I then proceeded not to submit a single thing until almost four years later because of the aforementioned laziness. But after I actually started to, you know, submit things, I gained a little insight into writing and the submission process.

Here’s what I learned after reaching 100 submissions:

Write for yourself. To be honest, one of the reasons I didn’t submit for three years after my initial acceptance was i didn’t believe in my stories. They didn’t fit a specific genre. They were too silly, or not scary enough, or too weird or…you get the picture.

So eventually I took a look at all the half-finished stories and wrote whatever the hell I felt like. You know what? They started to get accepted. One of my first paid-for pieces was even about a writer writing and you’re NEVER supposed to do that and I got away with it. You have a story in your head, that no one else can tell. It belongs to you. Write it down.

Do as your told. You’re a writer rebel. A loner. No one can tame your words. But if you don’t follow the submission guidelines, you’re going to end up at the top of the rejection list. That means if they ask for your story to be put in Comic Sans in purple font, that’s what you give them. They’ll never do that by the way. Please don’t do that.

You’re going to be rejected Rejection sucks! I know. Before I even started submitting I was a lurker and I heard the rejection horror stories. Writers online chatting out they sent out dozens and dozens of submissions and got maybe one acceptance. It’s just the way things are. Some places receive hundreds of submissions and there’s only so many spots to go around. Don’t take it personally.

Cover letters are awful. I’ve looked back at some of the old cover letters I wrote and I’m surprised I ever got anything published at all. They contained so much ass-kissing it was like a donkey make-out party. So instead of telling markets how wonderful they are, I’ve been keeping my cover letters as boring as possible. Here’s my name, here’s my story, here’s where I’ve been published. And if anybody has any tips for me, let me know. I hate writing these things.

Read it out loud. Think you have that story ready to go? Yeah right. 5 minutes after sending, you’ll look it over and notice you changed a character’s name three times, their hair color twice and suddenly they’re gender fluid. Know what helps? Reading it out loud. You’ll catch a ton of issues, even typos. Just don’t do it in a coffee shop on a busy Saturday afternoon. Don’t ask me how I know this.

Numbers don’t matter. Because we all know how much writers love math, right? I found myself trying to look up the average stats on the web the other day and thank god I had 100 submissions because it made the math easy. I had 12 acceptances (12% acceptance rate). Is that good? Bad? Am I just (shudder) average?

The truth is, it doesn’t matter. If you’re sending your stories to super high-tier places like The Dark, Uncanny and Diabolical Plots, you’re going to have a much smaller acceptance rate (if any acceptances at all.) If you have a lot of simultaneous submissions, your rejection rate is going to be higher. And absolutely NO editor will ever care about how many rejections you’ve gotten. Only if they like your story or not.

I guess what I’ve learned after 100 submissions is I like to write. And you there, if you’re submitting, keep at it. Submitted means you committed. And damn it, taking that leap is the hardest part of all.