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The Empire Strikes Back: The Editors of Flatmancrooked Speak
Last week, I posted about how Flatmancrooked is now offering expedited submissions, where they will read and respond to submissions within 14 business days, for a fee of $5. A pretty interesting discussion followed with a wide range of responses. Flatmancrooked Executive Editor Elijah Jenkins and Senior Editor Deena Drewis took some time to answer some of the questions about the program, the discussion here, and independent publishing.
Most magazines I’m sure, have considered monetizing submissions as a means of generating some revenue and also, perhaps, cutting down on the number of submissions. It’s a very tempting option. In fact, several magazines have adopted submission fee structures including American Short Fiction, The Missouri Review, The New England Review, Brevity, The Colorado Review, and of course the progenitor of this movement, Narrative, whose $20 submission fee remains the highest. Flatmancrooked is by no means the first magazine to implement such a program and the tiered approach ensures that those who don’t want to pay for an expedited review of their work don’t have to, which is nice. How did you come up with this program? How did you settle on the $5 price point? How much money do you think this program will generate? What do you hope to use that revenue for?
E: To be honest, I’d not realized so many magazines had monetized their submission process though I knew about Narrative. When we decided on this it was more about an opportunity to give writers a direct route to a senior editor and a means to acquire a quicker response. The money for the submissions was a component but it is there as a deterrent so that everyone wont expedite their submission. The message seemed simple enough to me: “If you need a quick answer from someone who can make an instant decision, here’s a way to get that. If you don’t, don’t worry about it. Just send your work the standard fashion.”
The reality is, if this ever generated enough money to be notable, we’d have to shut it down because I’d be spending hours everyday reading submissions. Because, I read each of the Expedited submissions personally. Last month, the expedited monies came out to, I think, about $40. We’ve not dogeared these funds for anything specific. We put it into the general fund, with which we pay for our site.
D: We had our reservations about it, and we knew there would be some backlash. But it was something we wanted to try out. The big difference to us is that it’s not required, and the slush pile has remained unaffected. I won’t go into great detail on my opinion on Narrative’s model, except that I do think their reading fee is absurdly high. They’re also one of the best paying venues (and I know there’s a lot of debate about who actually gets published there, but I know someone who won 2nd place in one of their contests. It does happen!) On the other hand, I don’t have a problem with American Short Fiction’s reading fee for two reasons: 1.) The money is going into their operational overhead, and that’s stated up front 2.) They consistently put out a really, really strong product. I’d hate to see ASF go under. And if they have to charge a $2 reading fee to help sustain their web platform and help with printing costs–if that’s what’s keeping their doors open, I think that’s totally reasonable.
Do submitters get personal feedback for the $5 fee or does the fee only cover the expedited review process?
E: I don’t entirely know what you mean by “personal.” I’ve been asked before if we give personal feedback. That’s misleading, in my opinion. I wonder if the real question is, if I pay $5, am I just going to get rejected with a form letter.
The answer is if you do get a rejection letter it is absolutely going to be a form letter, unless your work was “in development.” We don’t write letters detailing the problems of a story because it opens us and the writer up to dramatic showdowns. It’s happened before and looks something like this: We (FMC) say we’re passing on your story because of A. We receive an email from the author asking what about A was it we didn’t like. We respond, it’s the pacing (or language, or contextualization, or not in keeping with the arc; whatever). They offer to change it. We say there’s more than just A. They ask what. All of a sudden we’ve been drawn into developing a story that we simply didn’t want to work with.
D: It’s also important to note that the $5 is for an expedited reading and that’s it. Some of the concerns raised on the comment board were in regards to preferential treatment for those that paid the $5. You’re not paying for feedback. The submissions are treated in the exact same fashion as regular submissions. You just get the response quicker and directly from a Senior Editor.
How do you feel about magazines who enforce a fee for all submissions? Is that something you have considered for FMC?
E: If they can continue to get an acceptable number of submission, more power to them. Flatmancrooked is in a bit of a gray area in that we’ve only been around for 3 years so publication with our house does not, arguably, bestow upon the author the same amount of respect as publication in, say, American Short Fiction.
And, let us not kid ourselves, in the world of literary fiction, respect and prestige count for something. One of my friends commented yesterday in a conversation that I handled myself with great restraint in addressing our detractors on the HTML Giant comment board yesterday. But, that said, let me unleash a bit of my frustration.
The same juveniles who’d turn their noses at the respect of the literary community are same that would complain about not getting paid enough and simultaneously proclaim that they are craftsman or artists above all else. This sort of stance is maddeningly contradictory. You cannot simultaneously put art and money at the top of your proverbial pyramid. You’ve got to decide. I absolutely think authors should be paid for their work but the literary journal is not the ideal place for monetary gain. That’s what published single-author collections are for. And, the literary journal community (writing or publishing) is not a money game.
Are you surprised by the response to FMCs Expedited Submission program? Did you anticipate the range of reactions you have received?
E: I was surprised anyone noticed. I was surprised anyone gave a shit. You can send your work the standard way. That’s what bugs the shit out of me. We’re not requiring it. We’re simply saying, here’s another option. If we wanted to make money on this we would have advertised the new program, required reading fees for any submission. We didn’t even announce it in our newsletter. We just noted that we switch our submission manager to Submishmash (by the way, a great institution and platform, free to lit journals).
But, truthfully, the reaction from HTML Giant has been the first reaction we’ve seen at all. And, you are right in noting that it was a mixed reaction but our hearts have been warmed more than anything else by our fans coming out in our defense. We’ve been attacked a number of times about a number of things, always areas of little relation to the quality of work we publish. We know that our motivations are true and that we do this out of dedication to a medium we cherish. If any readers of this haven’t heard, our staff work for free. We all have day jobs. My day job helps support my book house. And, our staff work their asses off. We have world class editors, designers, and marketing personnel who get off work at 5 and start at FMC at 6, putting in four, six, sometimes eight hours of work on our titles. It is, admittedly, tough sometimes to get a beating on a blog when we’re doing this for free.
D: I wasn’t surprised that there was some backlash. We discussed possible repercussions before implementing the program. What disturbed me the most, though, was that there seemed to be a number of people who were ready to believe we were constructing this elaborate scheme in order to pocket the money ourselves and screw over the impoverished writer population. Beyond that, the other thing that was disheartening was the suggestion that $5–the price of a beer, for godssake–was going to buy your way into our publication. We’ve accepted one expedited submission. One. Because it was good.
Do you pay the contributors to your literary magazine?
E: To the website, no. To the lit journal we used to do profit sharing. But, there was rarely, if ever, profit. Beginning with the next issue we’ll do token payment but this is just out of appreciation for the authors. We don’t want authors to get nothing, in terms of monetary compensation. That said, we ask only for single print rights, all rights reverting back to the author after publication. We don’t pay what, say, Esquire or Harpers pays because we don’t buy stories. We, I don’t know, rent them? Our single-author titles have a boiler plate contract that does not allow for advances, but has a very generous royalty rate. But, that is for another discussion.
In your comment on the original post on HTMLGIANT, which I thought was quite eloquent, you note that you are a very small press with a very dedicated staff working for free while trying to put out well-designed and promoted books. As I read the comment, I couldn’t help but think, “That describes most independent publishers.” I don’t really have a question here but I guess I wanted to point that out, that we’re all in the same boat, making these difficult choices, supporting these endeavors with money from our day jobs.
E: Sure. We’d just prefer not to get spat at whilst doing it. (Laughs)
D: Yeah. Absolutely. The personal time and money spent goes to reinforce the idea that no one does this for any reason besides the love of it.
You also note that literary journal sales are abysmal. As an editor myself, I can attest to this. People always say very nice, flattering things about our product and rarely buy what we have to sell regardless of who we publish, how well we design or what we charge for the magazine. Why is it so hard to sell literary magazines? Is it possible to turn a profit while publishing a magazine? Is publishing a literary magazine that consistently loses money sustainable?
E: No, it is not sustainable. Our single author titles, our prize offerings, our special events, and special products support the literary magazine. Literary magazines and journals are important in that they are resume builders for writers. They are the places where writers are vetted and styles are developed. They are necessary. But, they are not profitable. We get closer and closer with each issue as our readership builds. In an issue or two, the lit journal may support itself, but we sell no advertising, get no grants, etc. The thing that is maddening, like I noted in a post about the original article, is when writers don’t support the very institution into which they are attempting to gain entry. I’ve seen the application fees for MFAs for instance. And, in that instance, you are paying to apply to something you have to then pay for, in order to gain a degree that is becoming less and less marketable. Don’t get me wrong. I think MFAs have the right to charge if they’d like. I’m just trying to contrast our model, one that offers a speedy response for a tiny fee but is, apparently, controversial, with the MFA app model which, regardless of how people feel about it, is very widely practiced.
Are you angry (or perhaps simply frustrated) that more writers don’t support literary magazines and independent publishers? Is it reasonable to expect that writers should support literary magazines given that, often times, they are allowing their work to be published without compensation? Isn’t that support enough?
E: Absolutely not. Look. We love our writers. We really really do. But, it is that sort of attitude that frustrates me. Writers, inherently, are looking for a readership. Without a readership, without a following, they cannot build a career. It can’t be done. That is what publication in a literary journal offers. Readership. And, validity. Last semester, Flatmancrooked journals and titles were taught at 9 universities. That’s serious validity. That means others are talking about and examining our author’s work. Put it this way, if they like the story they read, they are not going to come to FMC to look for more books, they (the reader) are going to look for more work by that author. That’s the reality of the cost/benefit relationship.
I ask this question, primarily in the role of devil’s advocate because I share many of the frustrations you vocalized in your comment on my original post. Earlier this year I wrote a post about how people mostly support literary magazines by talking instead of buying as I addressed the shuttering of the print version of Triquarterly. Many of the commenters noted that writers cannot be expected to buy every magazine to which they submit. Oftentimes it seems that editors become really resentful of writers. How do we move beyond relying solely on writers as a customer base? Is such a thing even possible?
E: I don’t buy that. That’s a cop out. Magazines are indicative of the editors tastes. If you don’t regularly read the magazine to which you are submitting then how do you know you are sending your work to the right place? Not only do I hope our submitters will read our work, I think it is entirely necessary. You’ve got to know your audience and your first audience is the editors your asking to consider your work.
D: I agree, though I don’t know if any amount of lambasting is going to do the trick. Writers want to be published. That’s the priority for most. If you are blanketing 20 publications with a single submission, of course you’re not going to have time to read every magazine. But I think that’s a much less gratifying way to build a publication record. If you’re serious about a writing career, you’ll find the publications you’re dedicated to. You’ll find ways to read them. And you’ll try to write stories that are good enough to be in them.
E: Well said, Drewis. Well said.
Your comment [on the original post] made things seem pretty hopeless. Are you losing faith in independent publishing?
E: Yes. But, there is nothing more intoxicating that a well designed book. I am a book junkie. If I ever kick this addiction, I’ll see ya’ll later.
D: Elijah is underselling himself. We get burnt out here and there, sure. Journal sales, I imagine, will always be an issue. But then at the same time, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of support for our debut author program, Launch, which has been very encouraging. It’s basically just pre-sale–the difference is the way we’ve asked the community to participate. It’s more involved than simply saying “Hey, pre-order this book!” There’s a level of intimacy with the author that people are responding to, and that’s something we’ve been able to nurture because we’re an indie.
How much would it take for FMC to be able to pay its staff and publish 8 books a year?
E: Well, now you’re asking me to talk about the integral components of our budget, which I can’t do. That said, I will give you this. I did this math last night. Last year we had about 3k submissions for our literary journal. We make about $2 in profit off every copy of the lit journal sold. If we cleared 6k in profit from a lit journal it would be earth-shattering.
You have a new approach you are rolling out on Monday. Tell me about it.
E: That’s still under development. I don’t know. Maybe nothing will change, maybe some stuff will. We are, at very least, going to offer an option whereby you can purchase our lit journal and then expedite your submission with your receipt number instead of paying the $5. Deena is trying to get me to allow a receipt for any book from an indie house. I don’t know how I feel about that. I am, for instance, a huge fan of The Paris Review, but I don’t think I should be able to purchase a Paris Review and get direct submissions privileges with Harpers. I really do want folks to read what we put out so that they know whether or not their submission is right for us.
D: The thing is, this was never meant to be a campaign about supporting certain publications, whereas the Tin House thing was making more of a direct statement that way. But since a few commenters raised the issue of $5 being unfair to those who can’t afford it, we wanted to think of something they could do in place of paying the fee. As I mentioned earlier, some of the criticism we came under for the program was that it was bribery. While I agree that ideally, everyone who is submitting to FMC should be familiar with the work we put out, I think it’ll be viewed as a sort of insular self-promotion of the house. The indie world isn’t some big commune, but the overall health of the industry is dependent of the survival of a number of houses. If you buy a book from Dzanc or Featherproof or Hobart, that’s great, too.
Tags: flatmanCrooked, independent publishing, submission fees
This is how I feel about it, Mike. When all is said and done, I don’t have a really intense opinion about submission fees because there are so many magazines out there. If I don’t want to pay the fee I do not have to. I have paid to submit and I will again. However, this business about submitting to magazines we really care about, this idea that there’s a morally appropriate way to be a writer, that the best way to build a career is by submitting to your sacred few favorites, is just not realistic and it isn’t practiced. We got like 451 submissions last month and three subscriptions. I accept that this is the way it is but as you’ve noted, the people who are shouting the loudest about caring where they submit have never bought an issue of our magazine, at least not directly from us or at AWP.
thanks Mike, that’s a pretty good answer. I wrote a longer response but realized that I was basically just restating everything you said, so, in short, I agree with what you’re saying wholeheartedly. I especially appreciated the point about reading SF/fantasy but not necessarily wanting to write it. I hadn’t really thought of that, but it does make the case for a reader-not-writer in the lit community seem stronger (not that, as you say, it’s really that bad that a reader wants to be a writer).
I predict a quiet, short thread of demure agreement.
I’m not sure I believe you have to read every journal you submit to. The submission process is long and hard and often requires a lot of magazines. That said, I have no patience for people who can’t even purchase two or three literary magazines while they cry about a lack of pay and slow submissions.
I also agree that learning what literary magazines you love and really want to be a part of and submitting to those instead of carpet bombing is ultimately a much more rewarding method.
Sometimes I wonder if no one really reads literary magazines or if there are simply far too many of them. People do read Tin House, McSweeney’s and other big lit mags. How many lit mags can we expect to be supported by thousands of readers? Of course, other times I think no one is reading anything and the whole endeavor feels pointless (yet paradoxically essential, as Elijah notes).
I’m not sure what to think of the expedited reading and won’t comment.
“We are, at very least, going to offer an option whereby you can purchase our lit journal and then expedite your submission with your receipt number instead of paying the $5.”
Best solution to this issue that I’ve read.
Man, I just can’t get on board with this sort of thinking.
I edit and read submissions for a well-regarded but rarely (very rarely) purchased magazine. I can tell you for a fact that just about no one we publish has ever in the past bought an issue. I mean I can’t name a time, of the top of my head, that it’s happened at all. These include people who are very well regarded in this community. There are also many who are very well regarded in this community who submit having never read the magazine.
I’m glad they submit because we want to publish the best work we can get, because we want to publish what we love. And for my money, the amount of time and labor they put into their work is more than payment enough for the time I spend reading it, and, in the case that we take the piece, the free issues we send them.
But I do get pissed off when I see these names in our submission manager and then think back to all the times I’ve seen them and their friends here insisting on how wrong it is to submit without reading. Of course they don’t follow that rule — almost no one actually does, because rejection rates mean that to do so would be impossible — but why do we have to pretend to be angels? Why do we behave as if there’s a moral component to this at all, really?
Yes, it’s good that this is just one option at FMC and no one is required to pay to submit. But I still view all this as a slippery slope. More and more journals are charging $3 reading fees for online submissions. If they still offer a (free) postal submission option, I’ll mail in my submission. But I won’t pay an online fee. Just won’t. What irritates me is when journals _only_ offer a paid option. It seems to be heading more and more in that direction — more journals will only take online submissions for money, and more journals only offer the pay-to-submit option and not the free postal option. (I know people love to say it costs about $3 to mail in a submission, but that’s not the point — paying the post office vs. paying the journal are totally different things.) Yes, it’s a problem that more people submit than they do read or buy the magazine, but are submission fees the best answer? What if a time comes when you have to pay reading fees to submit anything anywhere?
I’m guessing FMC editors probably won’t comment on the types of submissions they’ve received from the new $5 pay-to-submit option, but I’m curious if they’ve noticed any trends in quality, writer experience, etc. All I know is that if given this option to pay $5 for an expedited read, I’d never take it. I’m a writer; I pretty much have to be patient.
Why do you frame it as a moral issue?
The reason writers should buy magazines is largely self-interest: it helps you learn where to submit to and how to not waste your time and in a more general sense the community only works if the members are helping each other. Writers supporting magazines means magazines can pay writers, respond to submissions quicker, and in general make things nicer for everyone. It is also, as said, more rewarding to appear alongside authors you love in a publication you treasure than amongst who knows who in a magazine you’ve never seen and wont’ bother opening when your contributor copy arrives half-crumpled in the mail.
This is how I feel about it, Mike. When all is said and done, I don’t have a really intense opinion about submission fees because there are so many magazines out there. If I don’t want to pay the fee I do not have to. I have paid to submit and I will again. However, this business about submitting to magazines we really care about, this idea that there’s a morally appropriate way to be a writer, that the best way to build a career is by submitting to your sacred few favorites, is just not realistic and it isn’t practiced. We got like 451 submissions last month and three subscriptions. I accept that this is the way it is but as you’ve noted, the people who are shouting the loudest about caring where they submit have never bought an issue of our magazine, at least not directly from us or at AWP.
I’d rather pay a magazine than a post office.
Right — I’ve paid small fees before, though I disagree with them in principle, and I will again, because sometimes that’s the most practical way to advance my career.
Where it becomes relevant to FMC is that the editors of every magazine I’ve ever dealt with know what I’m saying is true for the same reason you and I know it: they aren’t publishing people who buy or subscribe. They just aren’t. Editors talk here and elsewhere constantly about the importance of reading where you submit, but to the extent that successful writers actually do this in my experience it’s because they’re successful enough that they get free copies. So it must not actually be that important, because as far as I can tell no one is actually doing it, and they’re getting published anyway.
And, you know, I actually did buy a copy of PANK at AWP, is the irony of it. Not because I believed it was a moral imperative, but because I wanted the magazine. If we buy what we want to buy and submit where we want to submit, things will work out fine.
I felt that FMC was framing it as a moral issue. I certainly wouldn’t.
I do buy magazines and it has helped me figure out how to submit, but I don’t buy everything I submit to because again on a practical level you can’t do that. If my goal is to get writers paid, buying a magazine as a writer is an insane way to do it: that’s called *losing money.* The way to make that happen would be to make a product that was really good and then market it beyond those who want to be inside it.
And, you know, the point of my comment was that there is no link between purchasing and publication: knowing magazines in general helps, but knowing particular magazines doesn’t, which is why I will be shocked if anyone here comes forward to say even half of the work they publish comes from people who have ever paid to read their magazine.
“knowing magazines in general helps, but knowing particular magazines doesn’t”
This is not true. At least not amongst good magazine worth publishing in.
“If we buy what we want to buy and submit where we want to submit, things will work out fine.”
If you believe there are no problems in the state of submissions, lit mags, publishing etc. then okay.
They demand $500 to submit?!?!?!
That’s crazy.
Oh, wait, I read that wrong.
It’s an optional fee of only $5.
I’m willing to wager most of the people who “don’t have that kind of money,” for an optional fee to expedite the reading process, spent $5 this past week on a pack of smokes or alcohol or pills or porn or some vice or form of pleasure.
Just saying…
Dude, now come on. Let’s just be honest about our own experiences. Just for example, I got a story in The Lifted Brow having read only what they post for free online. The Lifted Brow is clearly a great magazine, but I simply couldn’t justify paying the American price at the time, when I was completely wiped out financially from getting married. I submitted to them largely because I wanted to get a contributor’s copy so I could read an issue. Ronnie surely knew all this (or could guess it, or imagine less flattering versions) and he took the piece anyway, presumably because he liked it.
Again, I think the magazine I edit for is well-regarded and quite good, but there is clearly no correlation between paying for it and publication. In this instance I know that for a fact.
What makes me angry is that most successful writers and editors in this community realize this, and so many pretend otherwise because this myth is supposed to be helpful to sales. But I’m convinced it hurts sales, in addition to being a bizarrely self-denigrating position: if you don’t work hard enough to be good enough that people will publish you even if you don’t know everything about them and their tastes, then you’re not going to ever be great at this. David Foster Wallace didn’t worry about researching Magazine X over a period of years in order to crack the code of its tastes. He wrote great fiction and then he published great fiction, and it’s self-evident that it would be a small-minded, stupid thing to go to DFW and bitch that he didn’t buy enough lit mags. The correct response to receiving his work is “Thank you” and, if you can afford it, a fat check. Of course we can’t all be DFW but I don’t see any point in writing if I’m not going to try.
Maybe you do things this way Lincoln, maybe you are one of the few who are actually honest when you talk about this issue, but believe me when I say you’re one of very, very few.
I was not shaming anyone. Simply stating that many people claim to be broke when they really mismanage their money or choose to spend it on certain things, therefore they don’t have it to spend on other certain things. That’s not broke, that’s a choice.
Momdukes taught me it isn’t how much you make but how you choose to spend what you make.
I don’t think there are problems in the state of submissions, lit mags, publishing, etc. At least not in the terms you’re describing. For me the principles that people should buy what they want to buy and submit where they want to submit are more important than the principle that people should support lit mags and books generally. In fact I reject the argument that people should support lit mags and books generally; I think it’s wrong. For me the biggest problem in publishing today is that too much boring material gets published.
The pragmatic argument in favor of buying things you don’t want to buy is that then people will do that for you too, and so we will, by way of financial circle jerk, finance our hobby. But we’ve been trying this model for years and we know for a fact that it doesn’t work. The solution is to publish what we want to publish, buy what we want to buy, and accept whatever financial losses come with that. If we want people to buy more of our products, we can produce more attractive products and market them better. That usually doesn’t work, but it does in some cases, and guilt trips definitely, definitely don’t ever work. So we need to drop them.
That last bit about receipts and expedited submissions is brilliant. Chances are if you like a magazine enough to buy it, it’s probably a place you would like to see your own work in someday. You’ve got to read where you’re submitting to. It’s discouraging to admit that a place won’t care for your work, but that’s better than blindly carpet bombing a bunch of places that don’t want to read your shit anyway.
Great interview, and a really interesting discussion. Pay The Missouri Review $3 or the post office? Pay $5 and get a response in 14 days or send it in for free and wait 4-5 months. I understand all of the arguments, and in the end, as it is with your writing, I think you have to ask yourself one question:
HOW’S THAT WORKING FOR YOU?
You don’t want to spend $5, don’t. You don’t want to buy any literary magazines, don’t. Do what works for you. Be your own moral compass. There are ways to read just about any literary magazine out there – libraries, used book stores, pay $5-10 to get one issue, read what they have online, borrow a copy from a friend, steal them from your MFA program, etc.
I think FMC has done a lot of really cool things, a lot of really exciting projects (LAUNCH; PITCH; Zero Emissions, etc.) and I like the idea of supporting them.
If you don’t like Narrative and Glimmertrain, or even what FMC is doing, then don’t support them.
I will say that in this day and age, with the top magazines having acceptance rates of around 1%, you HAVE to simultaneously submit. It’s not blanketing to send the same story to FMC, Barrelhouse, PANK, Hobart, Juked, TMR, Cream City, Bat City, Black Warrior and Annalemma. It’s targeting your favorite places, and hoping for the best. And of all of these listed here? I’ve read all of them except CC. Reminds me, need to pick up a copy.
Really, we need to start a literary magazine swap. I don’t need TEN copies of TMR to understand what they want.
No one ever said you can’t be published without intimately knowing a magazine, I said that it does indeed “help” to be familiar with good magazines if you want to get in them. And I stand by that. I think your chances of getting into a magazine like McSweeney’s or NOON or Conjunctions or A Public Space will certainly be better if you are familiar with them than if you aren’t.
Obviously it doesn’t help to purchase an issue as opposed to reading in for free in a library (or even reading the work of its contributors in book form)
But you would really argue that knowing that wouldn’t help?
I’m not sure exactly where you want to go with DFW. Was he known for not reading other writers or literary magazines? You seem like you are implying that successful writers actively avoid spending money on lit mags, but I assume that isn’t what you mean.
Below Roxane says “that the best way to build a career is by submitting to your sacred few favorites, is just not realistic and it isn’t practiced”
And you say
“but to the extent that successful writers actually do this in my experience it’s because they’re successful enough that they get free copies. So it must not actually be that important, because as far as I can tell no one is actually doing it, and they’re getting published anyway.”
Both of you, IMHO, overstate your cases. There are absolutely writers who only submit to a handful of top journals. It is “practiced.” And there are absolutely successful writers who read the magazines they submit to.
I agree that you can be a successful writer without doing those things, but the idea that no one does either and gets published is not true by any stretch.
But again, I think the argument should be more about what is necessary to maintain a healthy community rather than what one can get away with.
**You cannot simultaneously put art and money at the top of your proverbial pyramid.**
What an embarrassing claim. It’s easy enough to have both at once by having two pyramids: the ART pyramid is the writing, the MONEY pyramid is the choosing where to submit to maximize one’s gain. One can certainly write for art’s sake and publish that art for money’s sake. People do it all the time; they just do it with magazines that actually have readerships and pay money.
I’m not saying I don’t want to support journals. It’s not giving $3 to a worthy journal that’s the problem, it’s connecting my submission with that $3. It strikes me as a big conflict of interest.
But you don’t connect spending money on a submission on the post office with your submission when you send the submission?
Not sure what the conflict of interest is in the case of a standard 3 dollar fee (as opposed to the tiered thing FMC does). As a cheap bastard, I certainly prefer free online submissions, but I’d rather pay 3 bucks to Missouri Review than the US post office.
It’s not a question of “getting away with” anything: no one here is doing anything wrong. Again, I buy plenty of books — not as many as I’d like to, but right now school spends most of my book money for me.
The point with DFW isn’t that he avoided buying books or reading either. Here’s what I’m trying to say:
That a) there is no significant correlation between buying magazines and successfully submitting in them. In fact, based on my experience, there is a negative correlation: people who get published are most often people who have never read the magazine. Again, interested to hear from people who have had different experiences, apart from those who mainly publish friends anyway.
b) What you should actually do if you want to publish is try to be a great writer. DFW was a great writer and we definitely don’t worry about whether he read or bought enough — once someone is legitimately great, we only care about their greatness.
c) These two facts imply that the perpetuation of the attempt to use guilt or the promise of increased odds of publication primarily serves as a way of getting money out of writers who don’t have very good odds. I wouldn’t even care about this except that I think it actually reduces sales, rather than growing them, because a product that has to be sold with a guilt trip is an extremely unattractive product. (I definitely don’t buy from people who try to guilt me: it shows me they’re not confident in their work.)
So while I am also interested in the health of this community, and obviously want people to buy magazines (I have a real interest in your buying two in the near future!) I think our community will be financially and culturally healthier if we lay off the guilt and get back to the hard work of writing.
Do you read everywhere you submit? Do you not only read, but pay? Do the people you admire? I can tell you for a fact that the answer to the third question is “no.” Most of them do not. What this implies is up to you, but I know that much with certainty.
Obviously the key to being a great writers is writing great things. I do fully believe that great writers almost always are great readers though and have read widely and fully.
Does this mean they read lit mags? Obviously many simply read books.
In my experience the most successful writers (to use your term) tend to submit narrowly and to read magazines. The degree that this is due to them being helped by reading or simply the fact that writers who are more diligent about submitting get published more and those writers tend to read more is of course up for debate.
“Do you read everywhere you submit? Do you not only read, but pay? Do the people you admire? I can tell you for a fact that the answer to the third question is “no.” Most of them do not. What this implies is up to you, but I know that much with certainty.”
Man I don’t know if you are confusing what I’ve said with the FMC editors, but I’m pretty sure most of the writers I admire read at least a few magazines and I bet most of them buy at least a few a year. This is all I’ve said writers should do (I do not believe writers should or even could read 30 lit mags a year, or however many they submit to).
I don’t really buy the idea that editors saying now and then that writers should read is deterring people from buying magazines (or for that matter making people buy them).
But what are your suggestions for improving lit mag circulation?
“Man I don’t know if you are confusing what I’ve said with the FMC editors, but I’m pretty sure most of the writers I admire read at least a few magazines and I bet most of them buy at least a few a year. This is all I’ve said writers should do (I do not believe writers should or even could read 30 lit mags a year, or however many they submit to).”
Then what are you arguing with me for? This is what I’m saying. Reading a few magazines is a good idea and I encourage it, though I don’t think it’s a moral imperative. (I think you should read what you want.) Where do you disagree with me?
“I don’t really buy the idea that editors saying now and then that writers should read is deterring people from buying magazines (or for that matter making people buy them).”
It certainly deters me. Ultimately I can’t buy that much per year on my current wage so it’s mainly a question of money that might be spent on, say, FMC’s publications going to other places instead, but when I’ve got a little more money to spend I imagine I’ll continue to feel the way I do now, which is that I’m not going to buy something people sell with guilt. And I like these people and generally like what they’re doing. It’s probably affecting more than me.
“But what are your suggestions for improving lit mag circulation?”
I don’t actually think increasing lit mag circulation should be our primary goal — I think that we mainly need to accept that publishing a lit mag means taking a hit financially and get over it. We flatter ourselves that we’re heroes for doing this, but we’re not — we do it because we want to do it.
But my ideas about how to increase circulation have been detailed pretty extensively on my blog. They boil down to “write better material,” “publish better material,” and “tell people who aren’t writers about all the cool stuff you’re publishing.” Is it enough on its own? No. But it’s what the relatively successful lit mags out there have done, and it’s definitely more effective than guilt.
but what if you opened up a burrito cart and then sold lit mags from it?well, maybe I shouldn’t make light of the situation, but that does seem like it would be awesome.
Trey: You just landed yourself on the Barrelhouse Board of Directors, my friend. Make it happen!
this is sort of a tangential to your comment, and maybe you don’t want to really go into it, but:
do you think there are many readers of literary fiction and/or poetry that don’t want to be writers, privately or publicly? or I guess your answer to that might be, no, there aren’t because of a lack of advertising to other people, so what I really want to ask is do you think it’s possible that the people that care about literary fiction and/or poetry care about writing in a way that seems to inevitably lead them toward writing themselves, and so the audience for lit mags will sort of always be writers? I’m not espousing that and asking because I think you’re wrong, I’m genuinely asking.
Those are interesting questions, Trey, and I don’t know the answers. Here’s my best guess:
When I was growing up I mainly read science fiction and fantasy because that was what my mother read. My mother has probably thought about writing, but not very seriously, the same way I’ve thought about playing guitar, but never really pursued it. Eventually I found literary fiction and there were some writers in there I really loved, though in fact most of what I read in my own time has at least some genre elements.
A lot of people read genre who aren’t particularly interested in being writers. Some people say this is because genre is easier to read than literary fiction. I think that’s wrong — science fiction especially can be extremely tough reading. Certainly the readers of genre fiction I’ve known in my own life have been at least as intelligent as the literary readers. And yet there are so many more of them. There are a lot of reasons for this, most of which (for instance: all the great SF movies) probably can’t be brought over into literary fiction to the extent that we define “literary” by the absence of what we call “genre.” But it does suggest people are willing to read under the right circumstances, and even that they’ll pay to do it. You have to give them a reason.
Ultimately though I think you’re probably right to suggest that the people that care about literary fiction and/or poetry will often end up being writers themselves, and I think this is a good thing: you can pick up a laptop and write in a way that you can’t pick up a guitar and play, though most of us will never be good enough to publish. What bothers me is that we use a combination of guilt and false hope (you aren’t giving us enough money to deserve publication, but maybe someday you will!) to try and get money out of these people, when what we should be doing is letting them submit what they want to (it’s a compliment!) and then doing our best to build a product they’ll want to buy.
I never lost interest in music because I couldn’t make it, but I bet I would have if a bunch of musicians strung me along for a few years instead of just selling me great albums.
Because if you’re required to pay them directly to accept your submission and read your work, it changes the dynamic. What’s to stop journals from leaving their submission periods open longer than necessary to accept more submission fees? It would technically benefit them to encourage more submissions even when the issues is almost full or if the editors plan on soliciting work from established writers. I’m not saying I think journals that charge submission fees have any of these bad intentions (lord knows the people who put in the time and work to run lit mags essentially have to have good intentions by default), but the fees do change the dynamic and raise these questions in the first place.
For example, an editor (of a no-fee publication) personally rejected my piece but asked me to try again with a different story…then again, then again…so he could see if I had something he wanted to publish. I kept submitting, but if I had to pay the journal $3 each time, I would have been a lot less likely to keep trying. (It would make all personal rejections more suspect…did they really like my story, or do they just want another 3 bucks from me in the future?) And what about the fact that many of the top journals solicit work? Do solicited writers still have to pay the fee? Where’s the line drawn for who pays and who doesn’t? And what does this mean for the writers paying to submit to the top journals when they already have such a small chance of being taken from the slush?
Yes, it costs me money to mail a submission through the USPS. But if I’m not paying the journal directly to read my work, then it doesn’t raise any of these questions. And just because the postage fees are taken out of the equation through electronic submissions, why should that money automatically go to the journal? It has nothing to do with it. FWIW, I also still have to pay for my computer, my internet connection, etc.
The fact that you say “standard $3 fee” concerns me, too, because you’re right — it’s becoming standard. A few years ago, submission fees like this would have been basically unheard of.
Again, as long as a journal provides some free way to submit, such as through the mail (which I believe TMR does), then I’ll live with it. But I won’t submit to the journals that require a fee for any and all submissions. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure they’re really disappointed to lose my submission. But that’s kind of the point, too — as much as journals are overwhelmed by too many submissions (mostly crap), they still need enough good stuff — including submissions from totally new or emerging writers — to come through.
thanks Mike, that’s a pretty good answer. I wrote a longer response but realized that I was basically just restating everything you said, so, in short, I agree with what you’re saying wholeheartedly. I especially appreciated the point about reading SF/fantasy but not necessarily wanting to write it. I hadn’t really thought of that, but it does make the case for a reader-not-writer in the lit community seem stronger (not that, as you say, it’s really that bad that a reader wants to be a writer).
What if you made edible lit mags and the contributor’s notes were written with sriracha sauce?
Wait: you’d RATHER pay the U.S. Postal Service three dollars than the journal you’re actually trying to get into?
I don’t understand a lick of that at all.
Let’s stop shitting ourselves. Here is an earlier quote from Deena:
1.) All expedited submissions do in fact go straight to either Elijah or I (the two most senior editors)–straight to our e-mail inboxes, in fact. The regular slush remains unchanged; stories go through our readers and associate editors and then senior editors, as they always have.
A lesson in statistics: expedited submissions will necessarily have a higher ratio of acceptance than non-expedited submissions. This is manifest, and must an argument be presented? The tastes of readers, associate editors, and senior editors will not be isomorphic. Therefore a piece from the slush pile must leap over the hurdles of not one but at least 3 different gatekeepers. I need even mention more than in passing the vagaries of human nature, of our subtle biases, because it isn’t even required to prove my argument: expedited submissions will have a higher ratio of acceptance.
So stop the bullshit already.
Hi Steven,
I don’t think that’s such a good lesson in statistics. As you said yourself, due to the “vagaries of human nature”, you can’t break down your likelihood of getting published by numbers when writing and reading are subjective matters. If our readers were robots that cast a random vote, you’d be spot on–much tougher to go through three readers than one. But our readers are encouraged to cast a relatively wide net for the very thing you cite–we want to limit the number of stories we might miss out on because of discrepancies in taste. So if it’s decent at best, it goes on to the next phase. Granted, no reading tier is seamless, but it’s unlikely that a standard submission that doesn’t get past the second round much less the first is likely to be accepted by Elijah or I period. Expedited or not.
Just for the record: since we’ve started doing expedited submissions, we’ve published one story, which happens to mirror our general acceptance rate, oddly enough.
Confused. The same people who went nuts and called this thing disgusting and all these other bad words and now all cuddle-cuddle. And the editors did not say anything that as writers and readers we didn’t know or couldn’t infer beforehand.
Weird.
I don’t think anyone who said this was “disgusting” has even responded to this post…
The way people keep dismissing those who say they can’t afford $5 is kind of unnecessary. Maybe $5 is nothing to you or me but for some people it is a lot of money. If that’s unfathomable to you, congratulations, you’re doing well for yourself. Fortunately, this is an optional service so it’s not that big a deal but still, no need to shame broke people for being broke.
“And just because the postage fees are taken out of the equation through electronic submissions, why should that money automatically go to the journal?”
Um…printing costs? I mean, where else would they go? To the post office? The USDA? Forest Service?
Sorry — don’t want to be a jerk, but I’m really not getting it. I don’t understand how that list of confounding questions can be rectified by giving money to the post office instead of a magazine where you’re trying to get your work published.
At Barrelhouse, we don’t have a submission fee structure, and we even stopped asking for fees for our contests, because we were uncomfortable with the power dynamic. But still, I can’t understand how you’re not seeing that there’s a value in a nominal fee — if a nominal fee is part of the process (again, it’s not, for us) — going to the journal.
Also, managing submissions electronically saves loads of time and therefore money. Mailed submissions are a tremendous pain in the ass to manage. Or at least, they were for us. Maybe if you have students who can do things for you (receive things, catalog them, organize them, shuffle papers from one person to another) it’s more manageable. We found that we were spending way too much time tracking and shuffling and handing off paper, and not enough reading submissions.
As an editor, I applaud Elijah and Deena for trying something. At Barrelhouse, we don’t charge for submissions, and other than contests (which we don’t charge for anymore), we’ve never discussed it. Still, we’ve discussed everything else. Yard sales? Kickstarter? Hitting people up on Facebook on our various birthdays? Increasing the print run to the point where if the thing sells well at the big retailers, then we’ll see a payoff in about six months or a year?
It’s hard. And it’s not as simple as “make something awesome and everybody will buy it.”
That said, we got ourselves into this. Nobody asked any of us to start up a literary magazine and try to make it work. In a lot of ways, it’s probably the worst money-making idea ever. We’d be in much steadier ground if we opened up a burrito cart. So I’m not complaining, acting like supporting FMC or Barrelhouse or Hobart is the civic duty of every writer. I would certainly hope that some of the folks who are interested in publishing in our magazines would go ahead and buy one. But again, it was our idea to start the thing up, so it’s our responsibility to make it work and ours alone.
And that’s why I think what Elijah and Deena are doing is totally aboveboard. They’re trying something out, and doing it in a way that still provides a way in for those who think charging for submissions — any fee, in any way — is just plain icky.
If you read between the lines of what everybody is saying here: writers are the only people reading these things, loads more people submit than buy, everybody is swamped in submissions, etc, you can see how it doesn’t take you long to figure that maybe the way to make this thing float is to charge for submissions. They are the one thing you have in spades.
I don’t think we’ll wind up charging for submissions at Barrelhouse, and as a writer I generally don’t like to pay for subs (although I’ve paid the $3 at ASF and Missouri), but I think FMC is doing it in a legit way, and I can see how they got there.
but what if you opened up a burrito cart and then sold lit mags from it?
well, maybe I shouldn’t make light of the situation, but that does seem like it would be awesome.
Trey: You just landed yourself on the Barrelhouse Board of Directors, my friend. Make it happen!
That would be pretty awesome.
It’s kind of Vouched Books, isn’t it? Which IS, in fact, awesome.
What if you made edible lit mags and the contributor’s notes were written with sriracha sauce?
well now you’re getting crazy. good crazy.
Confused. The same people who went nuts and called this thing disgusting and all these other bad words and now all cuddle-cuddle. And the editors did not say anything that as writers and readers we didn’t know or couldn’t infer beforehand.
Weird.
I don’t think anyone who said this was “disgusting” has even responded to this post…
Hey Deena,
Let me break it down for you. Your co-senior-editor states in this interview: “Last month, the expedited monies came out to, I think, about $40”
40/5 = 8 expedited submissions. You, Deena, later say: “We’ve accepted one expedited submission.”
1/8 = .125 or 12.5% Are you telling me you accept well over 10% of the submissions you receive from the slush pile? Bullshit. Now, I could insult your inability to do basic arithmetic (much less statistics) or be more appeasing and suggest you have since received many more expedited submissions such that your acceptance rate is lower and in line with your slush pile, but either way is missing my original point:
Expedited submissions will have a higher ratio of acceptance. Let me try some logic propositional logic. What is more likely:
1) P is a banker
or
2) P is a banker and a feminist
obvious 2, yeah?
okay, try this what is more likely:
1) submission X is liked by A
2) submission X is liked by A and B
3) submission X is liked by A and B and C
If need be, I can continue and give a more rigorous proof but let’s be adults and call a spade a spade. Your expedited service is closer to a luxury product for the better of, it is a VIP service, a velvet rope entrance. When you claim:
It’s also important to note that the $5 is for an expedited reading and that’s it. Some of the concerns raised on the comment board were in regards to preferential treatment for those that paid the $5. You’re not paying for feedback. The submissions are treated in the exact same fashion as regular submissions. You just get the response quicker and directly from a Senior Editor.
you are full of shit. Repeat after me, full of shit. I’ve never applied to your lit journal and I likely never will, the reason I am spending my time writing this is to point out the obvious bullshit being tossed about.
Look, it occurs to me that you might not have a strong background in statistics and logical thinking, that you genuinely believe that expedited submissions will be treated equally to the slush pile. But no matter how hard you try (unless you begin instituting strict record keeping and apply quotas to both piles) you necessarily be treating the two piles differently because the slush must survive more cuts. To disagree you must claim something absurd, something like:
Everything C likes B and A likes, everything B likes, A also likes. That A and B dislike nothing that C likes when it come to submissions. And, being with me being flippant, if you claim such a thing then you are truly ignorant of human nature.
I’ll speak personally. I can afford $5. Even when I could not afford a bank account I could have gone and paid a slight premium for a money order and a stamped envelope to mail my submission fee. I could do this, I don’t know, perhaps five times a month, maybe more maybe less depending on the month.
I could go several different directions from here but let’s consider how many submissions a writer (professional, serious, average, hobbyist, fancier) might make a year 50? 100? 300? At a hundred a year that would be $500, depending on who you are and where you are at that’s a month of rent.
Hey Malo are you a republican, cause you know, broke people are broke cause they made the wrong choices. Fucktard.
Stevie,
Let’s get this straight. I’m actually Republican, in the KKKlan and beat women. Jeez ur smahrt!
Like most people on the interwebs you don’t bother to read what is written and prefer to grandstand and call people names instead.
I will point out the part you missed:
-“I’m willing to wager most of the people…”
and
“many people claim to be broke…”
See Stevie, I am not saying ALL people that are broke, just a percentage of the whole.
So what you are saying is that all broke people are afflicted and play no part in their situation. If someone has X amount of income, then spend it all on something they want but don’t need, they bear no responsibility in their choice of purchase and consequent inability to pay bills.
Because what I am saying is that SOME broke people say they are broke, when really they have just spent their disposable income on X and then claim broke because they can’t ALSO buy Y.
And, again sadly Stevie, let’s consider your cute, tug-at-the-heartstrings saga of the writer who sends out 50? 100? 300? submissions a year, and therefore can’t pay their rent. At a hundred a year that would be an OPTIONAL $500, if they CHOSE the expedited OPTION.
Ok Stevie, go ahead, call me names, cherry-pick certain parts of my rebuttal and let’s get on with it.
or
Ok Stevie, show/think you are the bigger person by choosing not to respond, but maybe it is really just because… You were wrong?
So long as they’re veggie journals, I’m there.
First thing first: We have indeed received more expedited submissions since the first month. And besides that, it probably takes a little while to generate an accurate sample, though maybe that’s my weak background in logical thinking getting ahead of me.
The statistics lesson was great and all, but the reading of submissions can’t be treated like a math problem. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked for a lit journal or not. If you haven’t, with 90% of the slush pile, there’s really not much debate. The vast majority of it doesn’t make it past first reader. But the greater point, Steven, is that the chances of the first or second reader throwing out something we would have published had it made it to the senior editors are slim. Not impossible, sure. But pretty slim. That’s the nature of our slush tier, at least–like I said, we encourage our readers to pass along anything with promise. And they’re pretty smart people. Statistics for blackjack work because it’s a set of constants you’re working with. A slush pile? Not the same thing.
If you pay to submit by mail, then you pay twice. I don’t think Laura wants to pay twice.
(The move to electronic submissions is in every way a good thing. Yes, yes.)
When submitting to a contest that pays the winners… the submission fee is understood. Don’t know why you’d be afraid to charge for that… .
In a scenario where 90% of the literary journals charge to read your work, however… I wonder how expensive it could eventually get to be a writer?
Can we get a line of credit for the journals we submit to frequently? A frequent-submitter card, perhaps?
The editor-writer relationship is one of mutual respect and mutual desire. The writer wants publicity, the editor wants to publicize. Without bringing morality into it, as Lincoln would do… money can have a corrupting effect.
“For example, an editor (of a no-fee publication) personally rejected my piece but asked me to try again with a different story…then again, then again…so he could see if I had something he wanted to publish. I kept submitting, but if I had to pay the journal $3 each time, I would have been a lot less likely to keep trying. (It would make all personal rejections more suspect…did they really like my story, or do they just want another 3 bucks from me in the future?) ”
It doesn’t work that way. Not in my experience anyway. The Missouri Review did this to me (asked for more) but gave me a direct e-mail address to the editor to avoid the fee… I don’t know how that makes me feel in regard to submission fees (as I obviously pay them) but i didn’t feel bad about bypassing them when asked.
Why all this indirect animosity toward the U.S. Postal Service? They’re money-losing word people, too.
Most
2 : the majority of
1 : greatest in quantity, extent, or degree
Let’s say you meant to use “most” in the second, less common, sense, then, at the very least, you believe 51% are claiming to be broke when they are not. Of course, above, strangely you say SOME in capital letters instead of most, perhaps you have had a change of heart?
Getting away from your sloppy language, Let’s address your other point that “many” (go ahead and look it up), haha okay, that “many people claim to be broke when they really mismanage their money…” (and actually this is a republican talking point, sorry you didn’t get my clever, highbrow reference…)
That in particular was the comment I was responding to, because it is such attitudes that continue to put moneyed people before just people. Look around yourself Malo, if something can be monetized it will be along with the rationale that if someone wants it they can afford it and if they can’t afford it then it is their own damn fault.
Oh Noes! Scary Math and Numbers! Good thing I am a Writer and I can use Words like Magic and say “slim” even “pretty slim” and whisk away all the bad stuff Numbers (Scaryy!y) are telling me!
Slim or not, over time having two piles will create a significant diverge systemically shutting out those who cannot (or choose not) to afford $5 for “expedited” service.
In the interview it is stated that your magazine received about 3000 submissions last year. Even when I grant you that 90% (Oh hey look, numbers can work on the slush pile even though it isn’t a set of constants) that 90% is not up for debate, that leaves us with 300 submissions a year, If even 5% of what you would like to publish gets sifted out that makes for 15 submissions a year, more than one a month. Remember we already cut out 90%, so that makes it 5% of the best 10%, or you know .05% of all submissions you receive. .05% is pretty slim, 15 submissions I guess must also be pretty slim. Those who can afford submission fees know they get a better shot at acceptance and they will take it, and those who can’t afford it? Well I guess they have to work under another disadvantage, life isn’t fair etc etc.
Call your $5 fee what it is a velvet rope, VIP service, luxury product.
I guess it’s also possible that those willing to pay the five bucks might have a greater confidence in their ability to earn acceptance, because their past history has earned them the greater confidence. Perhaps there is a higher percentage of that pool who would have been more likely to be published under either scenario.
I agree with your point that a direct path to the higher-level editor makes it less likely that your work will be snagged by the filter of a lower-level reader. And I think your math is well-rendered. But I don’t think that a simple comparison of the acceptance rates yields anything especially useful, because (1) the sample size will always be too small among the dollar-payers, and (2) the pools are likely to differ in quality, due to the self-selection the dollar-paying requires.
I’ve read for lots of literary journals, and I used to edit one. I don’t think any claim to any sort of purity is going to hold up to any scrutiny. There is a vast matrix of competing and sometimes contradictory factors that go into what is selected and why. But I also know, from reading for lots of literary journals, that the vast majority of submissions are simply not competent or competitive for space in any way, and easily discarded. And for those who have said derisive things about the idea that readers can know early in a piece of writing that it’s out, I can tell you: You know pretty early in a piece of writing that it’s out. The pieces of writing that cause difficulty are the ones that are competent and even good, but which aren’t clearly in. These most often are the ones that cost readers the long hours on their way to the rejection letter, and they’re the ones that create the backlog.
You know… it’s a curious thing about small expenses… they tend to add up. You string together a whole bunch of insignificant “It’s only 5 bucks” moments over the course of a week, two weeks, a month… well, you get the idea.
Short story: the fewer small expenses I need to choose from, the better.
Look, I’m clearly not going to see eye to eye with you on this, Steven. If a journal has a 5% acceptance rate that doesn’t mean any submission has a 5% chance of getting in, because not all submissions are equal, though I probably don’t need to point this out to a logic whiz. You can calculate an acceptance rate, but not your chances of getting accepted. You never cleared up whether you’ve worked with a slush pile or not, but just to reiterate this: like Kyle points out, there are a number of intangible factors that go into the selection making process. You just can’t treat submissions the way you do dice or cards.
Anyway. I get the feeling that no “Words” are really going to assuage your bitterness, so that’s all I have to say about it.
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