The Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story Market: A Report from the Field

Three years ago, I decided to try Ray Bradbury’s challenge to new writers to write a story a week for a year. I’ve seen other people do it, although most of them were writing pretty short pieces. I averaged 3,595 words per story, with 186,937 words total by the time I finished.

The challenge was a great exercise for me. Even though I wasn’t a new writer when I started the effort (I sold my first short story in 1989 and well over 100 stories since then), I believe writing is a growth activity, and every time I start a story, it’s like I’ve never written one before.

A second benefit of taking on this challenge was that I suddenly had quite a few short stories to market. My experience in selling those stories might be interesting to other short story authors.

I submitted the first of the stories a couple weeks after I started the challenge. My process generally was to finish the first draft of the story in a week, and then rethink, rewrite, and polish the story over the next week while I was writing that week’s story. At my peak, I had over thirty stories circulating at the same time. I found markets through Ralan, The Submission Grinder, and notifications or invitations for markets on my Facebook feed.

As of today, three years and four months after starting the project, here are the numbers for the project:

• 37 of the 52 stories have sold
• 6 stories sold to the first market I sent them to
• 125 submissions for stories sold to the second or subsequent markets
• 149 submissions of the stories that have not sold
• 280 submissions total
• 1 sale for every 8.48 submissions
• 10 rejections is the most any of the sold stories suffered
• 12 rejections is the most for any of the unsold (so far)
• 26 rejections from one unnamed pro market that rejects quickly—this is a market I’ve never cracked
• 3 other markets I’ve never cracked rejected 29 stories between them
• Several stories sold to markets that were new to me
• 12 of the 33 sold to pro-paying markets
• 2 of the submissions resulted in a request for a rewrite
• 1/5 of the rejections were personal

My conclusions?

I was able to find places to submit all the stories pretty much all the time. If there are that many markets, then the short story marketplace is robust. The Submission Grinder lists 25 markets in science fiction that will pay six cents or more per word. There are many more beautifully done, semi-pro magazines that I’m proud to submit to who pay less.

This is an old lesson, but if you are going to write short stories and submit them on spec, you have to be thick-skinned. I have been submitting stories seriously since the 80s. I’ve sold 155 stories (also two novels and five collections) and been a finalist for the Nebula and the Theodore Sturgeon Award. I’ve appeared in several Year’s Best collections. I think I’m doing okay, but I’m still rejected at an 8 to 1 ratio. Mike Resnick doesn’t suffer from this ratio, I’ll bet, but there’s only one Mike.

Submitting is way faster now that almost all markets take electronic submissions, but it still takes time. Knowing the marketplace, submitting in the correct form, keeping correspondence professional, etc. is all part of the process, and it isn’t instantaneous.

I think if you regularly use Ralan and the Submission Grinder, you should send them donations. I also pay for NPR. If I’m getting value from someone, I owe them that.

Submitting regularly is how you learn the market. It’s also how you develop relationships with editors. I’d been submitting to George Scithers at Amazing Stories for several years before he bought something from me. Because I kept submitting, he started sending personal rejects. After a while, we had a healthy pen-pal relationship. I sent 5,000-word letters in the form of a short story, and he sent back a page with a sentence or two that was personal. Still, I felt a connection. I’m not into writing science fiction just to sell the things. I like that I meet other people, some of them whose contributions to the field are awesome. Communicating with the people who have provided so much reading enjoyment to me and others is fulfilling all by itself.

 

James Van Pelt teaches high school English in western Colorado part-time and writes the rest of the time. His fiction has made numerous appearances in most of the major science fiction and fantasy magazines. He has been a finalist for the Nebula Award, the Sturgeon Award, and the Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award, and he has been reprinted in many year’s best collections. His first novel, Summer of the Apocalypse, was released in 2006 and was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association. His third collection of stories, The Radio Magician and Other Stories, received the Colorado Book Award in 2010. His latest collection, The Experience Arcade and Other Stories, debuted at the World Fantasy Convention last year. He can be found on Facebook, and he blogs at http://jamesvanpelt.com.