Rejection letterts from Publishers

I've had a combination of plain rejection, through to standard rejection with a handwritten note of feedback through to a non-standard rejection with feedback typed in.

I'm guessing it depends on the persons time and the piece itself.

There are standard rejection responses, and they all sound pretty much the same: "not what we are looking for at this time". sometimes if they hold the piece longer, maybe for consideration or maybe just to be looked at by someone higher on the screening ladder, you MAY recieve a bit longer response.

i think size of the publication and number of submissions may also play a role sometimes, too.

it just varies, based on their time and their interest based on individual pieces.

just keep sending them out . a lot of bibliographies i've read talk about "collecting rejection letters" as a hobby, and i find that encouraging!

In one of mine, there was witten in italian somenthing like that: "Your writing is really entertaiming" (i don't know the correct word in english)"but there are some errors that put your manuscript in a point to not be published, but, if you want, and if you write somenthing else, we are very pleased to read it."

VISCA BARCA!

And also, I've only gotten the standard form-letter rejections so far. Some a full page, some a 1/4 page slip.

Actually, once I got my own cover letter back with "No thanks" written on it.

[quote=monkeywright

Actually, once I got my own cover letter back with "No thanks" written on it.

that's COLD.

the most honest one i got was an email that actually said "i like it, but not enough to give you money for it."

i was so surprised by the directness it made me kind of happy instead of sad.

I got a personal response back a few times. It was nice of them.

I get both personal responses and form letters. Even emails. Learn to embrace them. The more rejections you receive, the closer you are to publishing (if you believe in your writing). Become numb and barrel through. Develop a crap callus. Listen to the constructive, fuck the form letters. Move on. You'll get there.

I've had a slew of rejection letters for short stories from when I was seventeenish. I haven't written many since, and never really put the work into a short story that I put into novels I didn't finish. I seldom got any constructive feedback.

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for allowing us to consider your work. I'm afraid we are
going to have to pass on "Jupider." Unfortunately, we found that the
main character was entirely unsympathetic, and we weren't quite
certain whether this was an anti-hunting or just anti-gun story.

We wish you the best of luck with your future endeavors.

Thank you,
S.A. Parham & W. Olivia Race

It was neither.

Dear Daniel:

Thank you for submitting your work to The Pedestal Magazine. We enjoyed reading it but regret that we cannot use it at this time.

We wish you the best of luck in placing your work elsewhere and sincerely hope that you will submit other writing to us in the future.

Best,

The Editors

The Pedestal Magazine

Dear Daniel:

Thank you for submitting your work to Far Sector SFFH (formerly Deep Outside SFFH), the world's oldest professional web-only magazine of speculative and dark fiction.

While readers here appreciate what's strong about your work, we feel the work is not a match for our current editorial needs. That in no way is a critique of your work's quality, and we hope you don't feel too let down. Please persevere in your writing, and in time other readers will enjoy your creations.

Thank you for submitting "Bagging For It" to Book of Dark Wisdom. The story does not match the present needs of the magazine. We regret that we must pass on it at this time. Thank you for considering us and taking the time to submit.

Best,

Chuck

I have no idea why I sent that to a horror mag.

Dear Daniel,

Although we won't be publishing this particular piece, we do thank you for sending "Decadence". It was a good read. We're not able to give specific feedback, but please take a look at Editors' Input for some ideas. Again, we appreciate the opportunity to read your work!

Dear Daniel Crawford,

Thank you for submitting "Pink Room" for our consideration. You've an interesting story, but this doesn't quite suit the dark fantasy needs of Flesh & Blood Magazine. We prefer more of the surreal.

Thank you for thinking of F&B for your submission and good luck with all your writing endeavors.

dream dark; write brilliant.

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for submitting to Apex Digest. I'm sorry, but I'm going to pass on this one. Using a deep-sea race rather than an off-world alien gave the story and interesting slant, but I felt it was a little too slow and there were a number of grammatical errors.

Kind regards,

Gill Ainsworth
Senior Editor

That's the only thing sci-fi I ever wrote, I think. I spent an entire January reading grammar books after that.

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately we will not be able
to use this work for Vestal Review. We receive many
well-written, compelling, stories, but can only take a very
limited number due to constraints of space and style. We wish
you the best of luck in placing your story elsewhere.

Vestal Review Editorial Team

And then, DING:

Dear Daniel,

Great story - was very amused by the refernce to women forgetting to shake the
petrol from the pump!

You demonstrate a high level of writing ability and it is nice to see a horror
story which doesn't have to resort to elements of the supernatural - many
times, real life is scarier.

I am delighted to tell you that 'Small Talk' will be appearing in the March
edition of Thirteen.

All the best,

Andrew Hannon,
Editor

Dear Daniel,

Thanks for sending us “The Illusion of Heat”. We really liked the piece and
we’re pleased to say we will be printing it in issue 6 of the delinquent. It
was an impressive piece of work and despite only containing dialogue it was
never difficult to follow. It ran like a dream.

Welcome aboard! Enjoy the wind in your hair and the view from the bridge and
we’ll throw in a few shooting stars for good measure.

Launch details etc should be with you.

Sorry for the short email but we have a lot of replies to send out.

All the best,

Jason & Jeremy

ps. I'm afraid we can't afford to pay contributors or even give them a free
copy at the moment. We hope only to break even. Maybe, one day we'll win the
lottery... In the meantime we need all the support we can get.

www.thedelinquent.co.uk

I never expected that to get published, and thedelinquent has a cheesy as hell website but, I think, a pretty cool magazine, which was why I bookmarked it for future use. And that story is just something I wrote for the cult, starring Corellion, Phil, Nathaniel Parker, and myself.

I've only been rejected three more times than i've been accepted, i think. But i've only been accepted five times.
I hate submitting stories. It takes all the fun of writing out of it for me. Drudging through lists of magazines to find one that might fit for my story. I don't know, writing's great fun and i love it, but being a published writer is like trying to find your car key in a barrel of shit.

i've submitted to Apex, too.

and i know what you mean, mr. ejrathke, about submitting. i didn't start until about a year ago, and i only do it erratically, because i've found i can't write while i'm waiting for strangers to decide whether something i worked really hard on is worth a small amount of money.