This is topic Selling your short story -- one publisher at a time, or many at once? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.
This is one of those things where the answer seems like it should be self-evident, and probably something that has been discussed somewhere before, but I just don't seem very good at finding the answer. Forgive me if this is an old subject.
Anyway, when trying to sell your short story, is it better to deal with each publisher one at a time, waiting for the rejection slip, and then move onto the next, or is it better to send out a number of parallel requests?
The problem I see with the serial approach is that, given the response time of many publishers, you'd be waiting years to get through your list of potentials.
The problem with the parallel approach seems to be what to do if you get a bite, and then later get a second bite. Perhaps this is a silly concern, given that its hard enough to sell your story just once, but (hypothetically speaking, if nothing else) how do you tell the second publisher "no thanks, you've just wasted your very busy time reading my story because I've already sold it" and not spoil your future chances with said publisher?
Posted by JenniferHicks (Member # 8201) on :
Check the guidelines for the markets you're submitting to. Most short story markets won't let you submit to more than one place at a time, for exactly the reason you mentioned. They don't want to buy your story, only to find you've already sold it to someone else. And don't cheat on this rule because the editors talk to one another. You don't want to get blacklisted.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Short story sales don't take years. Book publishers can take years, but short story editors only take weeks at the most.
Short story market listings usually give a response time so you have some idea of how long it will take--it isn't ever years (short story writers wouldn't stand for that).
Posted by Dropbear (Member # 8819) on :
Great. Thanks for the succinct responses.
Posted by Brad R Torgersen (Member # 8211) on :
Unless a short work market specifically says they WILL take simultaneous submissions, it's best to take your story around the industry one market at a time because short fiction isn't like novels. Short fiction editors won't do a bidding war -- especially not for a non-Name -- and will very likely be annoyed if they DO like your story, then find out you're trying to sell it lots of places at once and some editor elsewhere wants it too.
The only SFWA market I know of which took sim subs was Baen's Universe, through the slush forum on the Bar. Now they're closed, so it's back to one-at-a-time for everybody else.
Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :
Writing is not for you if you are in a hurry. I have submitted more than 250 times. My 6th sub, I think, was a sale (after about a year of waiting for a response) but the story in question won't be appearing for another year or two.
So the rule is simple. You send the story out when it's finished and you immediately start another story. When the first one comes back from one market, you send it to another. And so it goes. I've ggot one story that's had seventeen rejections and is still doing the rounds. Others sell first time out.
You write. You sub. You write more. You resub if you get a rejection. You celebrate if you get a sale. And you keep writing.