Lin wrote:That's not necessarily true. Shimmer is a pro-paying market, and they give feedback on nearly every submission, and there's a few other like that whose names escape me at the moment. There's also plenty of token- or semi-pro markets that barely send out feedback at all. Judging from the Grinder, the average for all markets seems to hover around 10% personal feedback.
I appreciate that. I didn't know that Shimmer did that. Too bad I don't have anything to send them. However, since I like contemporary fantasy, I might have to work something up and send it on.
Personal feedback also isn't always an indicator that the story was better than any of your other stories. Usually (meaning: what I've gathered from various interviews/being involved with lit magazines) personal feedback is given when something in the story caught the reader's/editor's eye. It might have been a crappy story, but with an interesting alien species. Or, you might get a form rejection for a perfectly good but not especially interesting story.
Which is part of why I haven't got a clue what's what. Of course, if semi-pro and token markets aren't going to be any better about that, that doesn't help me out in the least. Thanks for the heads up on that.
Some other thoughts:
1) if you have a good amount of stories to send out, I still think the top-down strategy works best. If you've been doing it in batches, then you'll always have some in the top magazines, some at the semi-pros, etc. You're not ignoring the lower tier magazines, you're just waiting a bit to send a story on to them. Given the difference in pay and prestige, I think its worth it (although I don't submit to markets that have over 100 day waits, because that's just too long. Something to consider). If you've got one story that you're dying to see published, and are concentrating all your submission efforts into that, then it might benefit you to send it to the semi-pros first.
Right now, I'm sending them out as they're ready, and my first "batch" from a while back are retired for now. I'm not happy with how they are. Yeah, they're bad. I don't want to read them, so I don't want anyone else to either.
2)What do you write, exactly? There's some people who just aren't going to have a lot of luck with the top tier markets. Weird fiction isn't often something they want, and sword and sorcery doesn't get picked up as often. In those cases, you might be better off submitting to a semi-pro market that specializes in that, rather than a well-paying one that doesn't.
I have three out currently, with another in the editing process to go out after I finished working on what I've got on my plate right now. Two of those are post apocalyptic. One is a near future science fiction piece. The one in the editing is SF as well, and my WIP is also.
It's kind of hard to find who really wants the post apocalyptic stuff, and I have considered just self publishing those if it turns out that magazines just aren't interested in that kind of thing at this time.
Thanks for taking the time to answer. It's greatly appreciated.
