I have just posted my 40th submission of 2019 – a 3000-words science fiction story. This being the 28th week of the year, it means I’ve been submitting 1.4285 stories per week. That’s a lot.
And yet I’d like to write more, and submit more.
My current bounce rate is pretty high – of the 40 stories I submitted, I sold 9 and have six still out waiting for an evaluation.
It’s not bad, but there is ample space for improvement.
I have no illusion of ever becoming a 100% sales writer, but it would be nice to sell more.
I’ll work on it.
Karavansara 
11 July 2019 at 21:50
Forty? Wow, you are quite prolific!
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11 July 2019 at 23:58
Well, stories that bounce back get submitted somewhere else, so I have submitted more stories than I have written 😀
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12 July 2019 at 02:17
Still pretty impressive. I don’t track number of submissions, myself, but I’m sure I haven’t sent out 40 of them. I’ve only written 13 stories this year (completed 13, I’ve started 19), which is less than half of my goal at the first of the year.
For what it’s worth, I’d estimate that about half of the stories I’ve sold have been on the second or subsequent submission.
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12 July 2019 at 08:57
I track them because I want to see if there is a pattern.
And also, of course, for bragging 😛
And I observed the same thing – most of my sales were on the second or third submission. And this, in fact, a good thing – a rejected story is not a dead story.
Let’s keep up the good work!
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13 July 2019 at 16:44
A rejected story is not a dead story–very true.
Also, a rejected story is an insight into a particular market. I am coming to believe that a big part of selling short fiction is learning the quirks of individual publishers.
There are now several that I have a good working relationship with–I know what kind of stories they are looking for. Sometimes I’ll be working on a story and think, “I bet So-and-So would love this bit…”
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13 July 2019 at 16:59
Yes, I am trying to work out a similar system.
To be able to pitch a story to an editor I know might appreciate it.
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13 July 2019 at 21:18
It’s not a system, it’s a relationship.
I see it as being a subcontractor and developing a good working friendship with the GCs. The publishers are my clients and I use the same techniques for building a client base that I did as a locksmith.
Get a reputation for quality, on time delivery, with a minimum of hassles. Yes, the readers are the ultimate consumers, but the publishers are the ones who I really need to keep happy.
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14 July 2019 at 11:24
The publishers and editors are the ones that write the cheques, I agree.
And yes, I spoke of system but it is obviously a matter of building human relationships.
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12 July 2019 at 01:28
So we’re talking about 9 accepted out of 31. That’s a 29% success rate, not too shabby!
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12 July 2019 at 08:55
We can do better!
(that’s what I keep repeating myself – but yes, roughly one story out of four sold is quite good, all things considered)
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