Next!

Did I ever mention that I got another story back? A few days ago, Analog rejected "An Old-Fashioned Chat". Analog's rejection wasn't nearly as interesting as F&SF's. Analog did exactly what I had originally expected: pulled a form letter off their stack of hundreds of pre-printed rejections and stuffed it in the envelope with my story.

I am still waiting on the rejection of "She's Having a Baby" by Asimov's. As of Sunday, it'll be two months. It's starting to look like that one may have been lost in the shuffle somewhere. (How long does it take to reject on 700-word story? Sheesh.)

Anyway, now I need to find another market to send "Chat" to. I don't feel like sending it to Asimov's; having one story in limbo is enough. :) A glance at Michael Engen's site yielded at least a few other good possibilities, though. I'll do some more research and pick one this weekend. I really ought to take a stab at that "schmoozing" thing, but it's hard enough to motivate myself to find markets and print labels. If I wait until I'm willing to schmooze, I'll never get anywhere. ;)

Submitting Stories

I've decided to submit "Chat" to Scifi.com. This is, as near as I can tell, a part of the Science Fiction Channel's website which publishes sf/fantasy stories.

Their pay rate is eye-poppingly high for the genre: $.20 a word, while the other publications I've looked at have been less than a third of that. It turns out that Playboy potentially pays even better (a dollar a word? o.O ) but I wouldn't be surprised if that was, say, their non-fiction rate, and that they pay less for fiction. They do publish sf, though. However, for reasons that won't be obvious, I'm not going to submit to them any time soon.

After SciFi.com rejects it, I'll probably try Strange Horizons. After that, I dunno, maybe Interzone or The 3rd Alternative. I'm starting with those SFWA pro markets that publish sf, and I'd like to hit American publications first, just to so's I don't have to go through the bother of overseas postage. I'm sort of considering Absolute Magnitude, but apart from publishing sf, they look like a bad fit for this story. Their guidelines stress words like "action" and "adventure", and "Chat" is definitely not an action-adventure story.

So I may look at places that aren't on the SFWA pro list after SciFi.com and Strange Horizons send "Chat" packing. Or maybe I'll send it to Asimov's. Assuming Asimov's can get "Baby" back to me in less time than it takes two other markets to reject "Chat", I might consider it. You know, their website says their "response time runs about five weeks". I wonder when they last updated it? :D They do say to allow three months before assuming it's been lost. But I'll give 'em five, since haikujaguar said that was the longest they've taken to get back to her.