Market ready

 This week, in an effort to persuade myself to submit my short stories more, I’ve embarked on a radical overhaul of every story, and of my submission admin systems. 

I went through a few months thinking that nobody would ever buy my stories.  I had the idea that they were lightweight, shallow adventure pieces with nothing deeper to say.  I had this idea that they didn’t mean enough.

So it has been quite instructive reading though them.  I’ve written some new stuff specifically for anthology call-outs and themed issues this year, but the bulk of my stories are a few to ten years old.  Most of them have been sent out two or three times, rejected, and have languished in my files ever since.

The trouble with being female is that I suffer from Imposter Syndrome.  Most women do. For a writer, that takes the form of an insidious little voice whispering in your ear. It tells you you’re a nobody, and that magazines will always choose a story by an already-established author over yours.  The Imposter also tells me that my work simply isn’t good enough.

So what’s prompted the change this week?  Mainly it’s been because of tweets I’ve read by editors.  One of them gave a breakdown of publishing stats for his magazine.  He also stated how many were first sales by authors to that magazine, and how many were first-ever story sales.  Seeing that data had changed my mindset.

I’ve also seen a couple of threads by editors explaining why they reject stories.  They were emphasising that, in a lot of cases, it wasn’t because of the quality of the writing.  They were saying that many rejected stories were excellent, they just didn’t fit the magazine’s needs.

Seeing that has seemed to turn off the Imposter for a little while, so I capitalised on its absence when I re-read my stories,  No, they are not shallow.  Many have deep themes, and explore issues seriously. Yes, some were clunkily written, and have gone on the rewrite pile.  But on the other hand, I’ve come across  many excellent stories.  And one that really punched me in the gut and left me thinking ‘Wow! Did I really write that.’. It was brilliant, and needs to go out on sub immediately.

Hence the re-vamp of my admin systems.  I’ve been updating magazine submission guidelines, and adding  to them with new magazines I haven’t tried before.  I’ve been using the regular Submission Grinder emails to check on what is open or closed.  It’s prompted me to write submission open periods in my diary.  Several are for new mags, or ones I haven’t submitted to before.  

When their submission periods open, I’ll have a bunch of market-ready stories all ready to submit.