Before I go into my year-end statistics overview, a happy announcement. I had two stories go live last month,

“Tumbleweeds and Highways” was published in Clean Sheets.

“Web of Death” was published in MicroHorror.

I also finished the month on 100 Words which you can read at Val Gryphin’s December Batch.

Go check them out and if you have any comments feel free to leave them for me.

Go! Shoo! Then you can come back and read my stats!

Now, where were we. Ah yes.

In the year 2008, (According to my lovely Duotrope) I had 74 new submissions to 57 different markets, on 17 different pieces, with 11 submissions still out for consideration.

Of those 63 completed submissions I had 48 rejections:

• * 1 assumed rejection
• * 7 personal rejections
• * 40 form rejections

I also:

• * had 1 rewrite request
• * withdrew 7 submissions

And, (the best part) I received 7 acceptances, of which 3 have gone to print.

Other interesting facts:

• * the shortest response time was 0 days
• * the longest one is still out at 216 days
• * the next is an assumed rejection at 200 days (yes, I had emailed to check on it.)
• * the longest actual rejection was 189 days
• * of the acceptances, I had one that was 0 days and one that was 127
• * the piece that went out the most went out 13 times so far (and still not accepted!)

Overall I consider it a very successful year. I met agents and learned more about the business at a writer’s conference, and developed an elevator pitch I was able to give to an agent I respected. I was also requested to send the first 100 pages of my novel, which, even though it was rejected, was a great experience. I completed both NaNoWriMo and a month of 100 Words. I did a hard revision on Moving on Nightfall and am 2/3rds of the way through my second novel.

Yes, overall, it very good writing year.

It has been an insane few months. I attended my grad school residency, which went very well, and am currently working on my second packet. (Going half time is the best decision I could have made, more on that later.)

In July I attended a writers and agents conference, and pitched my novel Moving on Nightfall to a big name agent. It went very well, and she requested the first 100 pages of my novel. Unfortunately, she turned it down after reading it, but I learned so much about elevator pitches, and pitching to agents, and query letters just from that experience. I also have a lead on another agent who might like to see my work.

I currently have 9 stories out to 22 different markets. (I gave in on my avoidance of simultaneous submissions, although I don’t usually submit to markets that specifically say no to them in their guidelines. I have also found one or two that state by submitting they have the right to publish it, that is another post as well.)

Clean Sheets magazine accepted a piece of mine called “Tumbleweeds and Highways,” to be published probably within the next 4 months.

So this site will be active again as I spend more and more time working on not just the writing itself, but also the marketing and publication aspects!

Years ago when I started trying to write seriously I purchased a subscription to Writer’s Digest, and I kept it going for a few years. The more I wrote however, the less help I found the magazine as a whole. Part of the reason was that I found they often ran articles that were variations of ones they ran previously. Given that there are always new writers looking for the same information other new writers looked for first, this is a smart marketing tactic to bring in new readers. Writer’s Market is a huge business, books, website, etc., and I’m sure they look at the magazine as another way to draw writers into their brand market, which probably explains their attention grabbing headlines. While some of the other writing magazines, such as Writers’ Journal and Poets & Writers are a little subtler in their cover advertising, others such as The Writer are not. I feel like the Writers’ Journal and Poets & Writers tend to consistently have a little more that interests me than the other two, but I generally scan through them all at the newsstand, only purchasing them if there is an article I feel like I can use. Right now I am very focused promotion and publicity, so any articles on this tend to catch my eye, as do articles dealing with agents and rights.

Right now sitting on my shelf is a small stack of magazines I bought specifically for an article or two in each. The magazines that only had a couple of articles that interested me I used paper clips so I can open them up to those specific articles each time, and skip over the rest of the issue. Right now I have:

Writers’ Journal Jan/Feb 08 – for “Apples and Oranges: Adapting Your Novel”, as screenwriting really interests me. There were also a few secondary articles that interested me, “From Lowly Letters to the Big Time” and “Networking for $$$,” neither of which I would have bought the magazine for, but they did help me make up my mind about whether I should buy it for the first article. There were also other articles that I’ll refer back to as a bonus. (Didn’t paperclip this issue.)

Writer’s Digest Oct 07 – for a section they had on PR. There were three articles in the whole issue that interested me, but they were all worth it – “Get Your Money’s Worth” (self-promotion), “Sling Your Web” (web self-promotion), and “Marketing: Give a Good Reading” (obvious).

The Writer Nov 07 – “Making the Most of Minor Characters” (something I was focusing on) and “Using Podcasts to Promote Your Book.”

Writer’s Digest Writer’s Yearbook 2008 – “The Healthy Writer” (Health insurance), “Giving it Away” (giving away fiction and goodies on your website), “Get Good Press” (Building a PR kit), and two secondary articles – “101 Best Websites for Writers” and a small part of an article that talked about giving sneak peeks through mobile devices.

Poets & Writers Jan/Feb 08 – “Talent Search: A Special Section on Literary Agents” – a series of five articles. (I didn’t paper clip this one either.)

These are example of the kinds of articles that I have been looking for lately. Tomorrow I’ll follow up with marketing tie-ins from each of these magazines, and how useful I find them.