Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The Odds of Publication

I just submitted a short story to Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and discovered some sobering statistics.  Granted, Asimov's is one of the most prestigious, most popular sci fi magazines out there, but still...

If their submissions numbering system is purely sequential, meaning that if my submission is 522,019, the next submission will be 522,020, then there have been over 200,000 submissions in the last six months.  They publish 10 times a year, and I'm not sure exactly how many stories they publish in each issue, but this issue has 5 short stories plus 2 novelettes.  I'll assume then that they buy around 7 stories each issue.  That means that in the last six months, they accepted somewhere around 35 stories.  There are lots of variables here, and I could be assuming too much, but if these stats are accurate, the acceptance rate is around .017%.  Not 1.7%.  .017%.  To put it another way, my story will have to beat out around 5,700 other entries.  

Rather disheartening.

Ah, writing...the nightmare of our choice.

2 comments:

  1. I enjoy your writing and hope that your story beats out the other 5700 entries.

    Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy my writing. Here's to betting on the odds.

    ReplyDelete