Friday, May 14, 2010

Alas, Arkham Tales, I hardly knew thee

This is a continuation of my short story experiment. The How to Publish a Short Story.

I just received an email from the editor of Arkham Tales. They are currently experiencing a high volume of submissions and didn't feel they could accept my short story. Because of the high volume and the fact they can only accept a max of 12 stories per issue, they have to be very selective. Having worked in publishing, I completely understand.

I thanked the editor for his response and because he encouraged submitting more work in the future, I asked for the criteria for accepting a story. Hopefully I'll hear back soon. It would give me a lot to learn from.

To be honest, I don't feel rejected. And I'm actually disappointed I don't feel that way, haha. I mean, I'm glad he didn't say the story was horrible and don't ever contact us again, or anything like that. It was a nice enough email and quite professional. I have no problems with that. It just comes with the territory.

And to be more honest, to me, the fact they responded even though the story was not accepted, appears very professional. Lack of any contact whatsoever is a sign of unprofessionalism. Oh, I know  some would argue with that, but this is based on my own experience working with both professionals and non-professionals.

So, moving on with the experiment. I'm now looking into other zines for horror stories. The next one on my list specifies in their submission guidelines that 1st person POV is not readily accepted. I find that very interesting considering my story is in 1st person and I can't help but wonder if it's possible that was a strike against the story. I'm just theorizing of course, just guessing.

I'm currently writing another version of the story in 3rd person POV in order to continue submitting. It's a lesson learned for me. For the future, I think I'll write at least two versions of a story, tailored per zine, and hopefully increase my chances of acceptance.

In conclusion, I'm not giving up and will keep trying :)

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