What Not To Do When Submitting a Short Story (even though it worked out for me)

WARNING: The following story may contain some mixed messages.

I begin today’s lesson with an announcement. The great sci-fi forum known as Daily Science Fiction has agreed to publish another of my short stories! Those of you with scary good memories may remember “Cognito, Ergo Sum”, my first story with them—actually my first professional publication ever—that came out in September of 2016 (P.S. it is a short story, so if you finish it quickly and want to read more there’s always my Published Works page). Anyway, I liked the publication and its community so much that I thought I’d try to put another of my stars into the DSF galaxy. Which leads me to the first warning I’d like to give you all.

1)      Do not over-submit to one publication.

DSF had rejected me once before they took “Cognito, Ergo Sum.” Between that story and the one they’ve currently accepted, I made…(checks records)…yes, seven more attempts, and they weren’t shabby attempts if I do say so myself. For me, that is a lot of tries, and I’m certain that some writers have produced a bulk of flash-fictions for a machine-gun-style submission process; as soon as one story gets rejected, they fire right back with another one. Even though I’ve used a similar process a time or two, I’m not really a fan of such a method—I don’t know how attentive editors are to authors’ names, but I don’t want to run the risk of becoming “That One Writer” who makes the staff roll their eyes at your latest shenanigan in their inbox. Seven rejections is probably pretty mild, but it still felt like a lot. I decided to take a different angle with Number Eight—which leads to caution Number Two.

2)      Do not base your story on the publication’s rejection letter.

They say to write what you know. I knew a lot about the DSF rejection form letter. Therefore, my latest 500-ish-word effort, “The DSF Rejection Ceremony”, was a brief probably-fictional account of what happens every time a short story is rejected. It wasn’t anything bitter or vindictive; in fact, it was dramatic to the point of comical, not blaming the editors for the disappointing form letter that the writers receive and acknowledging how difficult it must be to reject so much work so frequently. At any rate, it was fun to write, and I kind of figured that the poor DSF editorial staff would get a kick out of it. Heck, rejecting the story would be rather appropriate.

Then, in mid-November of last year, I got an email from DSF. As was my custom, I flinched when I saw it in my inbox.

Contrary to my expectations, it was a brief letter personally written (I assume) by the editors Jonathan and Michele themselves. This was the entire missive:

Benjamin,

I love this. I doubt we'll publish it, will have to ponder, but it does feed my narcissism quite nicely! Well done.

 - Jonathan & Michele, Daily Science Fiction

After—yes, I keep bringing this up—seven straight rejections, this new communication seemed to be a fresh chance at salvation, even though they said they doubted its chances. But a chance was a chance, so I did the third thing that you really shouldn’t do when submitting:

3)      Do not reply to rejection letters.

A lot of publications make it clear that they do not want anyone complaining back to them if one of their stories is not accepted. As a rule, it is a good idea to not address an editor unless they ask for it. But in this case, I judged that A) this wasn’t really a rejection letter, as they implied there was still a chance, and B) this was a personal letter—so there was a better probability that they’d actually read a reply. So I replied. It was basically a list of reasons why it would be a great idea to publish “The DSF Rejection Ceremony.” I kept it polite (if sometimes humorous—I believe it does people good to laugh at emails), tried to keep everything short, and made it clear that—accepted or rejected—I appreciated their time and the opportunity they presented.

I don’t know whether or not it was read. All I know is that, a few days after Christmas, I got another email from DSF. After my customary flinch, I read it.

I have the good fortune of knowing what their form acceptance letter looks like, so this new message appeared to me like an old friend. Well…it wasn’t completely a form letter. At the bottom there was an added postscript:

“We understand that we are being mocked, and yet we are amused.”

That is one of the highest compliments to my writing that I have ever received.

In conclusion, keep an eye out for “The DSF Rejection Ceremony” in the relatively near future—if it’s not on my Published Works page already—and please please please don’t do anything I did when submitting your own short stories. In my humble opinion, the story above is evidence that divine intervention has a sense of humor.

P.S. After I wrote the first draft of this post, the new publication Sonder Midwest replied to one of my queries—they’ve accepted another sci-fi/comedy short story of mine! It’s been a pretty good month here.

2018 Inkitt Review

Happy 2018, everyone! Believe it or not, I am going to hold true to my New Year’s resolution to be a more useful blogger—and I will start by giving my personal appraisal of the manuscript reviewing site Inkitt.

If you are a writer with social media, odds are you have seen the ads for this “Reader-Powered Book Publisher” that basically offers to publish your manuscript if it is popular enough. It looks like a boon for both readers and writers:

·         If you are a reader, you have unlimited access to manuscripts across all genres, and you can leave feedback for the author to help their stories improve.

·         If you are a writer, you have a shot at being published! Inkitt already has a decent list of published books, some of which are Amazon bestsellers. They also work with the chosen authors to create and market their book.

·         It is free.

Naturally, this site appeared to be worth my time; I gave my manuscript “Stormlock: Activation” a spot in the online library. Here is how the whole novel-contest works:

1)      You can write your manuscript on the site or upload an already-written one from your computer.

2)      Readers find and read your manuscript—even if it is just an unfinished work-in-progress. From there, they can “like” the story; give it star-based ratings on plot, writing style, and grammar; and leave comments to the author and other readers about what they thought about the book (which is helpful for those writers asking “Why did you rate my plot so low?”).

3)      Inkitt measures how engaged the readers are. According to the site, their algorithm measures “over 1200 reading behaviors” to tell if your work is a real page-turner. On the author’s Analytics page, they can track how many chapter reads they have and watch a progress bar that tells them how much data has been collected by the algorithm. Once the bar is full, Inkitt will consider your work for publication.

And so, we reach the billion-dollar question: IS IT WORTH IT?

Well, dear reader, after a good long while in the Inkitt system, I can tell you that it is worth it…for some people. It’s not for everybody. From my observations, this is the author type that is ideal for Inkitt competition:

·         You’re a patient author. I uploaded “Stormlock Activation” about last spring or so…and I’m still waiting for my progress bar to fill. There was one time that it was almost all the way full—but then something changed on the website that cut my progress in half for some reason. If you urgently want your books published, Inkitt may not be for you.

·         You’re an author who writes about fantasy, drama, romance, vampires, werewolves, or alphas—preferably all of the above at the same time. If I see one more Inkitt book about someone being “mated” to a vampire/werewolf/mystical creature, I’m going to start a one-man cyberattack. On the site’s front page—where the “trending” stories hang out—I swear there is ALWAYS a story about a pack of werewolves that evidently takes mating habits and alpha males very seriously (actually, according to “Adam Ruins Everything”, a true alpha wolf is actually a wolf who is a father, but that’s a problem for another day). Sci-fi has a fighting chance, but usually when it’s in conjunction with the descriptors above. Looking at Inkitt’s top 20 right now…half of them are romance while one-fifth are sci-fi—and one of those is a romance/sci-fi. So if your style does not fit the list, Inkitt might not be for you.

·         You’re an author who can promote themselves out the wazoo. If you’re not willing to spam Inkitt’s group chats with advertisements for your manuscript, you will likely be overlooked. Your best chance is to be part of a supportive writing community outside of Inkitt already; that way you’ll have a bunch of people who are ready to give your book some hype. From what I’ve seen, the most-noticed advertisements on Inkitt are “book swaps”, basically one writer saying to the community, “Hey, I’ll read and review your book if you do the same for mine.” Which leads me to my next qualification…

·         You’re an author who can read quickly and on a computer screen. If your only hope is promotion through book-swapping, then you’d better get ready to do a bunch of reading on an electronic device, be it your computer or phone. I’m not really a speed-reader nor an electronic reader, so that does not sit well with me. Okay, I did once read The Martian on my phone, but that was a d*** good book.

·         You’re a not-too-critical reader. Books are one of my few generators of emotion. If something is off or stupid—like bad grammar, clunky dialogue, and dumb plot points—it throws me in a rage that takes me so far out of the story that I may never return. Yes, Inkitt has a lot of good stuff, but there is always that manuscript that leaves you wondering if the author, you know, reads books. It stinks if you’ve agreed to review such a work in a book swap; you don’t want to give the author the needed righteous criticism lest your own book suffers in his hands. OCD people may have a hard time in Inkitt.

·         You are an author who wants a manuscript review. At the end of it all, this is Inkitt’s biggest payoff. Inkitt is a community of readers, not relatives or real-life buddies. They (ideally) have no idea who you are—they can read your work and give an honest reader’s opinion. I’ve had nine reviews of “Stormlock: Activation” and they seriously helped me recognize some of the manuscript’s problem areas. They also helped me notice some of my strengths (when one reader says your intro is too short and the other says it’s too long, I say you’ve hit the sweet spot). This is what makes Inkitt worth the trouble, in my opinion. It makes your day so much better when you can open your notifications and see something like this:

This is a book of professional quality. Every aspect of the book, from grammar to world building, is well done. the mash up between fantasy and scy fi, maze runner and dedective story is very original. and i found the main characters very well done. my only point of criticism is that i would have liked rhe book to be a bit more fleshed out in the beginning, to make the setting richer. but thats just my personal opinion. the author is very talented and his work deserves to be published!

-       - timlapiere

Am I tooting my own horn? Maybe a little.

I hope this post has helped you. If you do end up joining Inkitt, though, don’t bother looking for my manuscript; it’s too out-of-date by now and I’m planning to ride out the progress bar.

I’m seeing if I can find an agent.