No one can tell you when to start a short story.

People can give you all kinds of advice about how to write one, but only you can decide when you are prepared to start.

This is something I deal with all the time. I’ll have a window of opportunity where I can work on a short story, and I’ll have a market in mind, and all I do is spin my wheels when I try to think about the story itself.

Case in point: I want to submit a story to an anthology that has a submission deadline fast approaching. When I first heard about the theme back in 2010, I did some relevant research, created a file, scribbled some notes and put it aside to gestate. Now that several months have passed, I’m only a little bit closer to having a story than I did back then.

That’s not entirely true. Last weekend, I started doing some location research. I have a scenario of sorts in mind. In fact, I plan to resurrect a couple of characters from another story, and I know why they are where they are and how the story opens, more or less. I stumbled around looking for a setting and I found one that is absolutely perfect. So, for the past couple of days I’ve been learning everything I can about this place. I wandered its streets on Google Earth (and isn’t that an impressive tool). I found news stories and a few videos that give me an even better sense of the location and the scenario that forms that background for the location and the story.

But I still don’t really know what is going to happen to the characters after they make a significant discovery.

Sometimes, a story happens like this: anthology theme, “clever” take on the theme, figure out who the main characters are and what they want, start writing.

Right now, I have the anthology theme, my twist on the theme and the characters, but I still don’t feel ready to start writing because I haven’t come up with the consequences of the twist.

It is possible, on occasion, to start with these elements and let the words flow from that mystical source from which they come. The characters do things and the story develops. I don’t know where the story is going, but it goes.

And yet, when I get to the computer these past few days, I can’t bring myself to create that new Word document and write the first words. That tells me the story isn’t quite ready. I’ve plowed ahead and hit brick walls often enough to believe that this sort-of block (something akin to Mike Noonan’s block in Bag of Bones, though not nearly so severe) is telling me I’ll be wasting my time if I go that route. I just need to think about the story a little more. I can see over the first hill or two, but there’s at least one more hill I need to crest before I begin. I don’t need to see all the way to the end—I rarely do with short stories, but I need to see far enough to build up that momentum that will help me get there.

That being said, though, there’s nothing like a looming deadline for motivation. At some point, if I really want to submit to this market, I need to stop dithering and start writing. And hoping the story comes…from that mystical source from which they all come.

Though my field of expertise is in chemistry, I hold a minor in math. I’m not sure that there has ever been a study to confirm or refute this, but I maintain a strange calculus: one acceptance letter is equal to any number of rejections. That is to say, an acceptance wipes the slate clean. I feel good about my writing again and I even feel armored against the next few inevitable rejection letters that will follow.

Another way to say this is: you have to develop a thick skin in this business and be persistent. I saw a beginning writer comment somewhere about a phenomenon described as “submission terror.” The condition was so disabling that the writer couldn’t convince himself to send anything out. In other words, he’s taken to writing his own rejection letters.

There is much to be said for persistence. I had a short story published recently by a pro-paying market that was originally written for a themed anthology in 2007. It didn’t make the cut (the editor told me he might have considered it if he’d received it less close to the deadline, and there’s another lesson to be learned there, assuming he wasn’t just sparing my feelings), so I de-themed it and started it on its rounds. Until the day it was accepted (I repeat, by a pro-paying market), the story had accumulated nine rejections, not including the original one. Each time I got it back, I updated my submission log, found a new market, and sent it right back out again.

That’s by no means a personal record. A fairly recent story found a home on lucky submission number thirteen. I published another that had been written eight years previously and accumulated 15 rejections, in a glossy magazine with national distribution.

When do I give up? Rarely. I have one story that I really like that has been rejected 20 times. I’ve rewritten it a few times over the years and, though I’ve yet to find the right home for it, I think it’s out there. It’s just a matter of keeping at it and researching the marketplace. I’ve never truly trunked a story, though some are in submission hiatus because I can’t think of any viable place to send them at the moment. I will occasionally consider a semi-pro market if it has a reputation that appeals to me, and I often give literary magazines a shot even though they rarely pay more than a pittance. I favor print over electronic publication, too, though I have published a number of stories in electronic media.

I still hesitate a moment before opening an e-mail that I know is a response to a submission. I feel myself cringe. I know the odds are against me, still, despite having published over sixty stories. I haven’t done the math, but I suspect that rejections lead acceptances by at least 3:1. Maybe higher overall, but in recent years that feels like the right number. But every one of those acceptances carries with it enough weight to overpower a number of rejections. I celebrate every one of them.

Rejections are rubber bullets. They may bruise but they damage no internal organs.

– by Bev Vincent

I’m including my picture in this month’s essay. It’s somewhat important to the piece, especially if you don’t know me other than as a name on the screen or on a piece of paper. If you don’t know me from Adam (or Eve), in other words.

In 2007, I was invited to submit to an anthology by an editor with whom I’d worked in the past. The general theme was near and dear to my heart and he was offering pro payment so I was willing to participate. I had a story that I thought would be a match. We spent a few weeks going back and forth, with me performing significant rewrites to satisfy his requests, and ultimately we arrived at a version that both of us were happy with. (Note this fact—it’s also important.) The editor sent me a contract, which we both executed. End of the story, right?

Wrong.

The editor turned the manuscript in to his publisher (you’ve never heard of them, so don’t worry about who it is), and it languished on someone’s desk for months. Finally they got around to it and did something unexpected. They sent the manuscript out to another editor for review.

Now, if I was the original editor, I’d be somewhat miffed by this, having turned in a finished manuscript that I was happy with. A few weeks ago he received a set of editorial comments back from the publisher, which he then had to distribute to his stable of contributors. This is six weeks before the book is supposed to go to the printer, mind you, and over eighteen months after the last time any of the writers have looked at their stories.

If you think all this is unusual, I haven’t gotten to the best part yet. The notes on my story consisted of two full single-spaced pages of text. It was savage. Among the first comments this editor (and I do not know who he or she is) offered: “It’s quite a challenge for a writer of one sex to explore writing from the perspective of the opposite sex. Bev Vincent has not done a convincing job.”

The protagonist in my story is a man.

I’ll sit here for a few seconds while that sinks in.

Me, the guy who’s pictured above, failed to do a convincing job of writing from the perspective of a man.

I’ve heard female writers talk about gender bias in the industry before, but it’s always been an abstract concept to me. Not something I’ve ever experienced. Oh, sure, people often think I’m female based on my name—it’s a common enough mistake, which I’ve had to deal with all my life. I like to tell the story about how I was almost assigned to the women’s dorm at university. However, I’ve never before had an editor criticize my writing based on a false assumption concerning my gender. Or make blatantly biased statements about the male perspective. Read on.

The editor says: “The story seems far too personal, introspective and emotional for a man . . . It is hard to imagine a fellow from a place like [the setting] uttering the following line.” The editor then provides three sentences from my story as examples. He or she continues, “And I can’t think of many guys from [setting] who call home every Sunday afternoon to talk to their family” [Emphasis his or hers]. Another brilliant insight: “Most men don’t think deeply about the dewy greenness of nature.” The ultimate conclusion: “She [sic] needs to write more convincing [sic] from a man’s perspective.”

I pause here to note that this was the most autobiographical story I’ve ever written, and all the things that the editor complained about were my real observations and my real thoughts cast into the mind of a fictional character participating in fictional events. I did, in fact, call home every Sunday afternoon to talk to my parents, while they were still alive.

To compound his or her arrogance, the editor claims that my prose is “overly elegant,” which is presumably his or her way of saying that a man would never write or think in elegant terms. Guess that means I write like a girl.

He or she goes on about other matters, but by this point I’ve lost all faith in anything this editor has to say. Some of the other criticisms—the ones not based on assumption about my gender—might have been perceptive, insightful and accurate—but it was impossible for me to credit any of it given his or her obvious wrongheadedness concerning a man’s perspective. My perspective.

The editor who invited me to contribute to the anthology tells me that this is a “very well respected editor,” without disclosing his or her identity. He apologized for the “gender confusion” as if it was simply a matter of the editor mistakenly referring to me as “she.” He didn’t seem to get the point that a major part of the critique was based on a faulty and biased impression about the way men think.

I’ve gone back and forth between laughing about this and being outraged. As you might suspect from the tone of this essay, indignation is winning. The original editor asked me to make the changes this unidentified editor requested. All of a sudden, my story had serious flaws that needed to be addressed—even though the acquiring editor had accepted it after revisions in 2007. I could have two weeks to completely rewrite the story.

Usually I’m pretty agreeable when editors request changes, but this time I balked. I reread the story for the first time in over a year and a half and I liked most of what I saw. I told the acquiring editor that I would fix a few clunky sentences if he wanted, but I wasn’t going to re-imagine the story at this other editor’s behest. That wasn’t the story I’d wanted to write . . . and it wasn’t the story he had accepted and contracted. It was the proverbial line in the sand, and neither of us would cross. End result: a 4000-word hole in their manuscript six weeks before publication for them and a pittance of a kill fee for me.

However, this essay isn’t about a contract issue that led me to withdraw a story from publication. For me it was a real eye-opener that a supposedly “well-respected editor” could make such an utter fool of him or herself and still be taken seriously. What I wouldn’t give to know who it is so I could present myself to him or her face-to-face and wait for realization to sink in.

I checked. Undid the zipper and looked, just to be sure. I think I am reasonably qualified to write from a man’s perspective.

– by Bev Vincent

The acquiring editor is the person most writers—and, perhaps, readers—are familiar with, at least in general. We submit stories to them, they accept (or reject) our work, and changes to the overall flow, structure, and content of the material originates with them. I think of them as conceptual or big-picture editors. A while back I wrote about what a good editor can do for a writer.

This month I would like to introduce you to copy editors, the unsung heroes of the publishing process. After the editor and the author have ironed out the major issues with a project, the manuscript then goes before the sharp eyes of the copy editor.

The first thing she does is to build a style sheet for the project to guarantee continuity from the first page to the last. The publishing house probably has a style manual that it uses as its Bible, but there will inevitably be things that aren’t addressed by the style manual, so the copy editor makes a decision about how such things will be handled, adds rules to the style sheet, and sweeps through the manuscript to make sure the rules are obeyed. How will times be represented: a.m. or AM? What numbers will use digits and which ones will be spelled out? Will essay titles in the text be italicized or put in quotes. Will certain words be hyphenated or represented as compound words? Will the serial comma be used? These are just some of the decisions the copy editor makes and enforces.

The copy editor also flags grammatical errors and catches errors in fact. She looks for overused terms or duplication of words in close proximity. In a work of fiction, a good copy editor will make sure that Jane, who has blue eyes on page 17, doesn’t turn into Jean with green eyes on page 317. In a non-fiction work, she will notice that an author has referred to a publisher as Everett House throughout when, in fact, the company is Everest House. The copy editor makes sure that trademarked names are correctly spelled. She catches vague references and ambiguities.

When I was working on The Road to the Dark Tower with Penguin several years ago, once the hardcopy manuscript went to the copy editor, it was “locked.” All subsequent changes were made on that printed version of the manuscript. The copy editor sent the manuscript back to the author with her notes in the margins and the author addressed the comments and suggestions in the margins using a different color of ink. For complicated or lengthy changes, the author could insert pages into the manuscript, but that version was sacrosanct. I often wondered what would happen if it were lost in transit. To be honest, I was surprised that a major publisher still did all that work in pen on paper—it meant that someone had to sort out the stets from the deles, interpret the handwritten insertions, and key them into the electronic master. It all worked out in the long run, but it seemed like an unnecessary step in the electronic era.

For my current project, the copyediting phase was done electronically. I received a version of my Word manuscript by e-mail with changes tracked and notes inserted where clarification was required. The style sheet came as a separate attachment. I went through the manuscript, again with changes tracked, and responded to comments and questions with my own comments and responses, accepted certain changes, rejected others—providing my reasons for doing so—and reworded passages that required clarification.

Copyeditors, in my experience, seem to be deferential people. They know that it isn’t their job to rewrite what the author has created, only to improve it. Often, alterations that were made to my manuscript were accompanied by queries that asked, “Change okay?”

After the author addresses the changes,the first pass of the book’s layout can be created. This is the point where proofreaders come into play—and the author is to be counted among this group. That’s the point I’m at with my current project. The first pass is on its way to me as I write, and I will have a week to go through it. In general, all I would need to do is proofread, but since this is a profusely illustrated book, I’ll also be seeing proposed design elements for the first time, and I’ll have to write captions. It’s been a fascinating project to work on, let me tell you.

I have the utmost respect and undying gratitude for the copy editor who caught all my silly mistakes and will make the finished product (and me) look better.

– Bev Vincent

Recently, a representative of a book packager contacted me with a proposal for a project they wanted me to consider. 

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. That’s the sound of my brakes squealing across the pavement. Book packagers? What’s that? Sounds kind of dodgy. Some sort of scam, mayhaps? 

Before committing to anything—or indeed, even responding to the unsolicited e-mail—I had to educate myself on what this book-packaging thing was all about. Book packagers are exactly like publishers. They produce books. They have researchers and editors and marketers and foreign rights departments, and all the other things that you might expect a publisher to have. They have artists and illustrators, book designers, the whole nine yards. They even have their own organization: The American Book Producers Association. 

What they do is bring together all these creative people to assemble a “package,” which is just another word for a book. This book idea either originates with another publisher—perhaps even one of the big, famous, New York publishers—or the proposal is shopped around. That’s right—the book packager also acts as a literary agent for the project. 

Why do they exist? Because publishers don’t always have all the resources necessary to produce labor-intensive books—ones that have a lot of photographs or illustrations, require a lot of research or involve the acquisition of rights and licensing. That’s the stock-in-trade for a book packager. The volumes they produce would look right at home on your coffee table. Big, lavish volumes with photographs. Every page illustrated and intricately designed. Book packagers (also known as independent book producers) make complicated books easy for a publisher to publish. 

As was the case with the project I was offered, another publisher often comes up with a concept, perhaps prepares an outline or some guidelines, and then hires the book packager to produce the finished volume. 

So, what’s the deal? As with any other publishing relationship, the sky is the limit. It’s difficult to generalize. The conventional wisdom is that the writer’s end of the deal with a book packager is much like “work for hire.” That means, you get a flat fee for your words—which, after all, are just part of the package—no royalties. And, sometimes, not even name credit on the book or a transfer of copyright to the book packager. It’s like being a ghostwriter. Those terms may be deal breakers for some people. 

However, everything is negotiable, and not all deals are the same. The book packager in this instance offered both royalties and name credit. Though the boilerplate contract stipulated a transfer of copyright, my agent successfully negotiated copyright in my name. During negotiations, he told me he enjoyed working on this deal because it was a different type of contract from the usual ones he was used to seeing. Different kinds of clauses and concerns. 

There was something else to consider—though I will get a royalty on every copy sold, the royalty is based on the sale price to the publisher who initiated the project, not on the cover price. That’s not the way things normally work—it’s more like the terms of a normal contract for “deeply discounted” copies, except in this case, every copy is deeply discounted. 

On the other side of the equation, though, the books are sold to the publisher on a no-return basis. I will get a royalty for every copy printed. None of that nasty “reserve against returns” that appears on typical royalty statements—money held back by the publisher in anticipation of a certain percentage of returned books from stores. 

There’s another dimension to this project: I’m essentially a servant to two masters. I have an editor I’m working with at the book packagers, and another editor downstream with the publisher who solicited the project whose name I don’t even know. It is possible that I will “finalize” the manuscript with one editor only to find out that more work will be required at the behest of the second editor. So far, the second editor has been agreeable with everything we’ve done, but it’s something to keep in mind should you find yourself considering a deal with a book packager. 

Things tend to move very fast in the world of packaging. The editor first contacted me at the end of November 2008. After a few rounds of discussion, both by e-mail and phone, I was intrigued enough to get my agent involved. He went off and did his thing with them while I prepared a detailed outline for the project, which I submitted in early January. 

After the outline was approved, I got straight to work. Because of the accelerated timeframe, I had 1/3 and 2/3 point deliverable deadlines—both to keep me on track and to provide the photo researchers with material to work from. 

The editor has been a delight to work with, as enthusiastic about the project as I am and very supportive of the work I’ve done to date. Exactly the kind of environment every writer hopes to have while working on a book. 

Now, less than three months after the initial contact, I have an executed contract and a completed manuscript. Because these books are so lavishly illustrated, the word count tends to be fairly low. In this case, 20-30,000 words was the contracted text. 

In parallel, the photo researcher and documents experts have been gathering material for the book. I don’t have any involvement in that, though I have been able to facilitate access to certain materials. The book will be published this fall—about a year after initial contact. It’s hard to match that in “mainstream” publishing. 

So, that’s what I’ve been up to during 2009 to date. I had the first draft finished at the end of January and I spent the first couple of weeks of February revising and polishing the manuscript and I turned it in last week—two weeks early. 

The advance is probably more than I would get for a first novel from a paperback house and for much less work—and there’s the possibility of further revenue if the book is popular, or if side deals are executed for subsidiary rights. All in all, a very pleasant process. Especially in this economic climate, and with the fairly dire state of affairs in publishing, it was a welcome surprise to have something like this drop into my lap.

And, at the end of the year, I’m going to have copies of this beautiful book in stores across the country. Guess what all my friends and family are getting for Christmas this year?

– Bev Vincent

There’s a scene in Amadeus where Mozart has just finished playing one of his new compositions for Emperor Joseph II. After a few generalities (“ingenious,” “quality work”), the Emperor concludes (at the prompting of Mozart’s nemesis Salieri), “There are simply too many notes, that’s all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.”

The movie version of Mozart, who has the benefit of a good script to feed him a comeback, retorts, “Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?”

Several years ago I wrote a short story for a themed anthology. Although the editor expressed an early inclination toward accepting my story, the anthology (it may surprise you to hear) failed to materialize. I submitted the story to a few markets in the aftermath of that implosion, but never reread it or paid much attention to it. One editor, bless his soul, took the time to write a lengthy critique, almost two full pages. He saw a lot of good in the story, but felt that it needed major work. I filed the story and the critique away without taking further action.

A few weeks ago, I received an invitation to a broadly themed anthology. For some reason, that story came to mind. However, when I perused the invitation and brought up the story document, I saw a problem. The guidelines specified “no more than 4000 words” and the story’s word count was 6200. Ah, well, I thought. I’ll just have to write something new.

A day or so later, I was struck out of the blue by a question. Why was the story so long? That’s a pretty beefy tale and the plot, as I remembered it, wasn’t all that complex or involved. The entire story takes place over the span of an hour or so. I brought up the document again, wondering if I might be able to trim it back a little. That seemed a tad optimistic—after all, 2200 words represented 35% of the story’s total length. If I could just get it back to 5000 words or so, I rationalized, maybe the editor would consider it despite its length. (We all know that guidelines are meant for everyone else, never for us!)

I didn’t get very far into the text before realizing that there was a lot of extraneous material. The tale barely got started before I was sidetracked by a lengthy “essay” about the nature of the protagonist. All very valuable insight for me as the writer, but overkill in terms of the story. It was so bad that at the end of that diversion I had a space break to remind me it was time to get back to the plot.

Instead of a scalpel, I wielded a machete. The floor around my computer became littered with excised text. Adjectives, sentences, paragraphs, huge swaths of pages all went. Some of the writing was very precious. I remember writing those gleaming passages, but with several years of distance I found I was able to trim them with only slight twinges of regret.

By the end of my first pass, I was down to 4600 words. Well, then, I thought. Close, but no cigar. I told myself, “Self, it’s going to be very difficult to trim much more than that.”

Two days later, I took another whack at it, after rereading the critique from the helpful editor who had had enough faith in the core concept of the story to send me such detailed notes. As of this writing, I’m only halfway through the second revision, and the word count is at 3600. I’m sure that more will be cut before I tackle the next phase, which will be a procedure akin to plastic surgery to repair the grievous wounds I’ve inflicted on the prose. My machete left gashes and gaping holes. Coarse sutures are holding paragraphs together. My scalpel will come into play to trim, shape and mold, to remove the scars and join the text back together seamlessly, I hope.

Okay, I think I’ve stretched the medical metaphor as far as it will go. When I’m finished with the story, it will probably have crept back up a little, perhaps verging on 4000 words again, but whatever I add (post-op, so to speak) will be subtleties and nuance that give the story depth and—I hope—impact. No more blather.

Is there a take-home message? So often I’m not sure when I start writing one of these essays. It’s a vignette from my writing life. Take from it what you will. I had this lumbering story occupying my hard drive that was so bloated (too many words) that I couldn’t find many places to send it. With a little distance, I saw the skinnier, zippier, edgier story hiding inside and I hope that I’m managing to tease it out.

– Bev Vincent

(With apologies to Lawrence Block for co-opting and modifying the title of his most excellent book about writing fiction)

Much of what we write about at Storytellers Unplugged has to do with the world of fiction: short stories, novels, screenplays, video games, etc. Today I’d like to spend a little time discussing how everything you know about marketing fiction is the exact opposite of the way things are usually done in the non-fiction world.

Can you imagine the response you’d get if you sent a query letter to an editor that said, in effect: I have a great idea for a short story that I’d like to sell to you. Here  is what the story will be about. Would you buy this idea so I can start writing the story?

If you received any response at all to this query, it probably wouldn’t be very encouraging—and perhaps not printable in this blog. With fiction you write, then you sell. For non-fiction, you sell, then you write.

Non-fiction projects are typically sold via a proposal. Before I started shopping around my idea for The Road to the Dark Tower, I researched the process. At the back of Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, & Literary Agents, I found a valuable resource:  a section titled “The Knockout Non-fiction Book Proposal.”

Armed with his advice and the template from his book, I created my own 50-page proposal, which consisted of the following. Except where noted, each item was approximately one to three pages long, double spaced.

• Title page. There was every chance that the proposed title wouldn’t survive the editorial/marketing process, but I gave the title a lot of thought just the same.
• Project overview. The overall concept, with snippets of the rest of the proposal distilled into a punchy pitch letter.
• Author bio. This wasn’t simply a CV or a list of previous publications. It was where I explained (in third person) why I was the ideal person to write this book, as opposed to someone else. What relevant resources and connections I had, along with other work that pertained to the subject matter at hand. Though I listed fiction publications at the end, the focus was on my non-fiction experience. (In response to this section, I was susequently asked to submit recent copies of my Cemetery Dance column.)
• Market analysis. Why did the book need to exist? Who was the target audience and how could I tap into it? I used the demographics and sales figures for King books to bolster my argument, for example. In general, this is also a place to list other books that covered the topic and why the proposed book was different or better, but in my case my book was going to be the first on the subject, so I emphasized that fact.
• Promotion: This section allowed me to outline any connections I had to the target audience that could be used to help promote the book. This was also where I demonstrated my enthusiasm for the project by stating clearly that I would be available for interviews, appearances or any other duty the publisher might request. In addition, I named people who had already told me they would be willing to consider providing a blurb for the book, along with other likely candidates.
• Approach: My plan for the book – for example, writing style, source of material, the use of direct quotes, interviews, sidebars, etc.
• Table of contents: Even though I hadn’t written the book yet, I provided my outline of what I thought the book would look like, including chapter titles and appendices.
• Chapter by chapter expanded outline: My outline ran fifteen pages, with approximately a page devoted to each chapter. It didn’t summarize the chapters—it couldn’t, as I hadn’t written them yet—but it detailed the purpose of each chapter.
• Sample chapter: I included the full text of the first chapter of the book, which was the only part of the project I had written at this point. Approximately 25 pages.

I started with a query, as I might for a novel, and then followed up with the proposal. Once a publisher expressed interest, I was able to acquire representation from an agent and the negotiation went on from there.

Once we had a deal in place, all that remained was to write the darned thing.

Though the above pertains to a book-length work, the same concept is relevant to shorter works such as essays, book reviews and interviews. Pitch and sell the idea, then do the work. Otherwise you could spend a lot of time working on spec projectst that never get sold. The same is true, of course, in fiction–though some writers achieve enough success to be able to sell future works on proposals–but that’s just not the way the system works at present.

by Bev Vincent

In his endnotes for the short story “N.” in Just After Sunset, Stephen King postulates that “everyone suffers OCD to one degree or another.” What does that have to do with submission tracking? I’ll get to that shortly.

I concur with King’s theory, though I would add that most people’s version of the disorder can be written off as mere quirks. I, for example, have a mild obsession with numbers. Even before the recent roller coaster ride on Wall Street, I monitored the Dow Jones values each day, and I keep tabs on the exchange rate between the US and Canadian dollars. When I’m at the gym, I watch the calorie counter and the heart rate monitor as much as I watch the TVs hanging in front of me.

Back in the 1990s, when I was cycling seriously, I kept a log that recorded my daily distance, time and calculated average speed. While I was riding, I focused on my rpm, changing gears to keep it in the 90-100 range.

Here’s one I picked up from my father: I keep a logbook in the car where I record the mileage and amount of gas at every fill-up. At one time, I used to enter that data into a spreadsheet and monitor mpg trends. It told me when I needed a tune-up clearer than anything else. My wife has given up asking me why I still keep track of that information. I can use the “tune-up” excuse, but that’s probably not the complete truth. I simply have a mild fixation with numbers. It doesn’t interfere with my life.

So, this is where it gets a little odd—if it isn’t weird already. I track my short story submissions four different ways.

The first thing I see when I enter my office is an erasable white board. It lists the short stories I currently have seeking homes, and the market they are with. I can tell at a glance when a story is fallow. When there are too many gaps in the right-hand column of that table, I make myself go on a submission spree. I usually try to get a story right back out again, as soon as I receive a rejection note, but sometimes other business makes me fall behind.

On the computer, I use a free download called Sonar 2. It allows you to enter markets, along with contact information, editor names, URLs, full guidelines, etc. and even has a feature that will print mailing labels for you, though I haven’t used that yet. I have my own special formula for preparing a postal submission, and haven’t found reason to deviate from it. The second part of the database lets you enter short stories. You can specify word count, genre, a synopsis, etc. These two lists meet when you match a story with a market. The front panel of the program displays a list of stories (sortable by different criteria) that shows how many days a story has been out or if it has been accepted/rejected, based on your latest update. If you make a sale, you can enter the amount and keep a running tally of income that way.

On the left-hand pullout tray on my writing desk, I keep a small spiral notebook. On each page I list a short story, its word count, and each new submission by date. When I get a response, I note the date. On the left-hand pages, I list possible markets for future submissions for that particular story. When I get a rejection, I can tell at a glance exactly where the story has been already so I don’t make the stupid mistake of sending a story to a market that has already rejected it.

Finally, I use Duotrope’s online submission tracker—but not for myself. I contribute to the database of response times to help build up that resource, which I use quite often to research new potential markets for stories. I never refer back to anything I enter.

Each of these tracking methods serves a different purpose, but it seems like overkill, doesn’t it? Perhaps a tad obsessive?

All I can say in my defense is that it works for me, and I never mind that I have to update information in four places each time I hear back from a submission. I wipe the market off the white board (or, in the happy case of acceptance, erase both the story and the market). In my spiral, I put a check or an X after the submission date and write in the current date. On my computer, I click the title of the story, click on the submission record, and check a box saying I’ve had a response. And, finally, I go online to Duotrope and add the submission and all pertinent information.

Many people develop their own homegrown ways of keeping track of submissions. If you’re looking for your own solution, maybe one of these methods will suit your purposes.

Or two.

Or three . . .

– Bev Vincent

I have published something on the order of fifty short stories since I began writing seriously at the beginning of the millennium. Some of the early stories appeared in what are disparagingly referred to as “for the love” (or “4theLuv”) markets. A few were published in “royalty only” anthologies (which are but a smidgen better than 4theLuv markets in that in rare cases some of them have delivered a pittance in revenue—my current record is about $18). Most of the recent ones have appeared in professional markets, some with distribution to tens or hundreds of thousands of readers.

Every now and then, someone asks me when I’m going to release a collection. Choosing from among those fifty stories (plus the twenty or so that are currently seeking homes), I could probably put together a decent volume of my short fiction. Over the past few years, I’ve been approached by reputable small press publishers to do just that.

A couple of years ago, when I was in New York on vacation with my family, I had lunch with my literary agent. Among the topics on our agenda to discuss was a then-recent proposal to do a collection. When I broached the subject, he asked me what I thought it would do to grow my readership. In other words, who would buy this collection beyond people who already knew of my work, either by direct exposure or by reputation?

As much as I would love to see a handsome volume, artfully designed by a specialty press, with an eye-catching cover illustration and a signature page for my John Hancock, I got his point. He was looking at the big picture of a career in publishing, versus the quick and easy gratification of a limited edition.

Single-author collections are a hard sell, especially for an unknown author like me. No mainstream publisher is going to release a collection of my stories, and few people are going to splurge on a $30-$50 small press edition from someone they’ve never read before—assuming they hear about the book in the first place. The total print run would logically be something on the order of 250 copies, enough to satisfy the people already familiar with my writing and maybe a handful of others. As my agent asked, how would that expand my readership? The book might satisfy readers looking for more of my work, but what would it do for me?

Instead of rushing into faster but lower-reaching deals to get a novel or a story collection in print, I’ve decided to be patient. I’m not young—but I’m not exactly old, either, so I have time to improve my skills and come up with something that New York wants to publish. Maybe it will be the novel my agent is currently reviewing, or maybe it won’t be until three or four more manuscripts down the line. Maybe ten—who knows?

Perhaps I have delusions of grandeur, or think more highly of my writing than reality might suggest, but I have decided, for better or for worse, to aim as high as possible for my books. Perhaps I have the luxury of doing this because I’ve already had my ego fulfilled by publishing one book through a mainstream publisher. If I never succeed at that level with my fiction, at least there’s that.

If I were to achieve some success with novels, then it might be time to think about a story collection, when it could actually appeal to a wider group of people who’ve heard my name, perhaps read things about my work, and want to test out my writing in smaller doses than committing to a novel. That could actually benefit my career. All in a best-case universe, of course. There are many hurdles to leap before that joyous day. I accept the possibility that some of these hurdles may be insurmountable.

This essay was inspired in part by a recent discussion about authors who may have published too early—writers who appear content to only publish in the small press, or who seem too impatient to try to break out at a higher level. I’ve given the subject a lot of thought over the past few years. Robert McCammon ultimately withdrew his first four books because he felt he had been published too soon, when he was still learning his craft. I’m not sure I agree with his assessment of his early novels, but I respect the high standards he has decided to set for himself.

As I said, maybe I’m deluding myself about the potential for my writing. My agent doesn’t think so, which is encouraging. Everyone in this business has different goals, different reasons for doing what they do. Different needs they want to have met. I already have a shelf full of anthologies that prove to my ego that I can be published. My goal at this point (subject to change without notice) is to continue to be published well.

–by Bev Vincent

I’ve written about this subject before in On Writing Horror as part of an essay on marketing myths. However, I thought a real-life example might help drive a message home.

Four years ago, I read a call for submissions for a royalty-only e-anthology. If there’s anything you should run from faster than a royalty-only anthology, it’s a royalty-only e-anthology.

“Royalty only” means you don’t get paid up front for your story. You are promised a pro-rated percentage of a fraction (typically 50%) of the total proceeds from sales. In theory, that sounds promising. If the book sells a thousand copies at $10 each, you’ll be getting a cut of $5000. Assume twenty authors in the book and all stories roughly the same length, and you’re looking at about $250, not bad for a short story.

The problem is, very few anthologies sell a thousand copies—especially those from the small press. A hundred copies is more like it. My largest royalty check for this type of anthology is $18.00. Not quite as attractive as $250, right? And that’s the largest check by an order of magnitude. I have received two checks for one anthology in the amounts of $1.05 and $0.87 respectively. Laughing all the way to the bank, I tell you. And when you translate that into the number of eyeballs on the page, well, it’s a sad, sad situation, as Elton John once said. I’m not going to get into the debate between writing for art or for visibility versus filthy lucre here. (If you want to read a recent debate about pay rates and professionalism, read through this recent thread on Shocklines.) Suffice to say that I like getting paid for my work. It’s one of my favorite things. I also like to have my stories read.

If print anthologies are a tough sell, e-anthos are worse. The rumored wave of online readers has yet to materialize, and the demise of books—printed books—has not yet come to fruition. People are staying away from electronic books in droves. If an e-anthology falls in the wood, no one will read it. (At least no trees were sacrificed.) Your precious story will be “lightly published” at best, and first serial rights are gone forever. Any subsequent appearances will perforce be as reprints, and you’re not likely to get $250 for one of those.

Naïve as I was, I wrote a story for the anthology, submitted it, had it accepted, and had the gumption to feel proud of the accomplishment. I wish I could plead youth and foolish innocence, but the truth is, I wasn’t all that young. Foolish, perhaps. Innocent, arguably, at least in the ways of the publishing world. Desperate, more like—desperate for publication credits and willing to sacrifice any number of things to get there. I bought into the belief that you had to work your way up the ladder by starting small as you learned your craft instead of learning your craft and then aiming high.

However, as it turned out, fate had other plans for my story and me. The publisher behind the e-anthology closed up shop and the editor returned the story rights to me. What was once accepted became unaccepted, and I had the story back in my grubby little paws, unviolated.

Remarketing stories written for theme anthologies can be problematic. I didn’t know what to do with the story, so it stayed in my filing cabinet for a while. Dormant, but not dead. A year or two later, I saw the guidelines for a no-entry-fee contest (the best kind) that I thought the story might fit, but only after some fairly major reconstruction. For one thing, my story was set in the wine district of Australia. The contest mandated that the stories be set in New England. I needed a wine district, mountain overlooks and a beach. Fortunately, after a little research, I was able to find all of these where I needed them. A complete rewrite also removed many of the elements I included in the original version to make it fit the anthology theme. A complete rewrite also improved the prose. A different story went off to the contest. I had high hopes—I always do.

Unfortunately, the story didn’t win. However, the contest organizer informed me that several judges had rated my story highly. That gave me more confidence, so I printed out a fresh copy and aimed high.

Last week, I received an acceptance letter from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. I have a list of top-tier markets, places I’ve dreamt about being published. Cemetery Dance magazine was one, and I’ve had the good fortune to publish both fiction and non-fiction in that periodical. Others on the list include Asimov’s, F&SF, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine…and EQMM.

What do these dream venues all have in common? They’re pro markets, true, but there are a decent number of those around. These are pro markets that have been around for years. Decades in many cases. And they have significant circulations. That means visibility. That means exposure. Don’t let any other type of market seduce you with the promise of “payment in exposure.” The only place where you’ll get serious exposure is in a book or magazine that appears on the shelves in your local bookstore or is sent to a large subscriber database. Your readership will instantly expand far beyond the people who read only small press publications. People from Seattle to Key West and San Diego to Presque Isle (look it up) who like crime fiction will have the opportunity to read my story. Tens of thousands. EQMM, launched in 1941, is the longest-running mystery digest of all time and has a circulation of nearly 200,000.

That’s so much better than the six people who might have paid to download the e-anthology that never was. Including four friends, a guy I work with. And me, of course.