Niteblade

Archive for the ‘Submission Status’ Category

Right now the oldest fiction submission in our queue is from January 22nd, so if you sent us something before then and haven’t heard back, please feel free to query.

Know what else is exciting? We’re 20% of the way to the sales/donations goal we set for the March issue. That means we’re 20% of the way to releasing the web-based version of the site. Do you want to help? If you’ve got a couple dollars to spare consider picking up a copy of the March issue, or any of our back-issues at the Niteblade Store, or you can make a straight-up donation. If you haven’t got any change kicking around and you really want to read the March issue online for free (and you should) the best way is for you to tell your friends about Niteblade. The more people who come by the more sales we make* and the sooner you’ll be able to read this amazing issue for free.

~*~ Niteblade Store ~*~ Lycanthropist (sneak peek) ~*~ Link To Niteblade ~*~

*It also increases our advertising revenue, but that money gets put into the pool for the June issue.

Alexa and I had been hoping to respond to all submissions to the poetry anthology by October 15th, but there is a significant quantity of high-quality submissions to go through so we may need a little longer than that. We are working through them as quickly as we can while still giving each piece a fair assessment. Honest.

All other submissions may also have slightly longer wait times than usual.

They are called submission guidelines, but really, it’s better to think of them as submission rules. If a submission doesn’t follow them, I’m not going to accept it. Even if it’s really good. Even if it’s really, really good. That sometimes makes me sad but there are good reasons for it.

I may not know it’s good.
All submissions get read by slush readers who then vote and/or comment on it. Each yes vote is worth 1 point, each no vote is worth -1 and each maybe is worth 0. I pass on any submission that gets a score of -3 or lower without reading it. Depending on who voted I may also pass on -2 pieces without reading them. Thus, it’s only certain I’ve read a story if it has a score of -1 or better. What’s more our slush readers are told, very clearly, that they do not have to read a story that doesn’t follow the submission guidelines — the most obvious way of knowing this is by looking to see if it’s indented. If a story is indented they tend to just vote ‘no’ on it. It only takes two slush readers doing that to make it likely I’ll never see the submission.

Following guidelines is a skill
Someone who can follow guidelines is someone who can follow instructions. When I accept a submission from someone it is followed by further instructions “Please fill out this agreement and send it back” etc. If a submitter can’t follow instructions even the most uncomplicated of interractions becomes a nightmare.

Ignoring submission guidelines is disrespectful
If someone doesn’t follow our very simple guidelines it feels disrespectful. They are asking us to read and consider their work for publication, but don’t care enough to read and follow our guidelines. It feels like a slap in the face.

Submission guidelines exist for a reason
I don’t create rules in just because I can. They don’t exist because I’m on a power trip or like making people jump through hoops. Each guideline exists for a reason — usually to make less work for us and allow the process from acceptance to publication to move smoothly.

Those are just a few points off the top of my head, but I think it comes down to this: If someone can’t follow submission guidelines I don’t want to work with them no matter how fantastic their work is.

I know a fair number of writers are interested in submission statistics, so I thought I’d share some of ours in a short blog post.

I’ve got two strong sources of data. Duotrope’s Digest and Submishmash. Duotrope’s has listed Niteblade since we first opened, so their stats are based on a longer time frame than Submishmash’s. However, Duotrope’s information is not as complete because it is based on submitters self-reporting data. Since not all submitters use Duotrope’s Digest, nor necessarily accurately report their information, it’s nice that we can supplement that data with some from Submishmash.

Duotrope’s Digest shows an average response time of 22.8 days for an acceptance and 24 days for a rejection.
Those numbers are strongly influenced by historical data, our turn over time for submissions now that we’ve switched systems has greatly decreased. You can see this in action by looking at the rss feed for Niteblade on Duotrope’s Digest. You’ll see the 20 day response is an abberation now. Yay!

Duotrope’s Digest reports that our responses break down like this:
Acceptances: 9.38%
Rejections: 85.94%
Rewrite Requests: –*
Author Withdrawals: 4.69%

Submishmash, which only has stats from the beginning of December 2010, shows the following:
Acceptances: 5.05%
Rejections: 87.88%
Author Withdrawals: 7.07%
Interestingly, these rejection numbers are low because poets often send more than one poem as a single submission and we often pass on all of them. That means some of the rejections that are recorded singly actually represent as many as five pieces.

Nom nom, numbers to crunch!

*I included this because it illustrated the incompleteness of data from Duotrope’s Digest. I don’t often request re-writes, but it happens.

After a lot of careful consideration I have decided to start using Submishmash to handle Niteblade’s fiction and poetry submissions. You can see our new, schmancy, updated guidelines here, which include a link to the new submission forms. It is my sincere hope that once I work through the backlog of emailed submissions and start using the automated system exclusively it will speed up response times for all submitters and ultimately help make Niteblade run smoother and more efficiently. If the system works well for the fiction and poetry submissions I will begin using it for book reviews, interviews and art blog showcases as well.

This change means that over the next few weeks Niteblade will be looking for a handful of slush readers. This is a volunteer position, but can provide invaluable insight as to what it’s like to be on this side of the submissions process. You would need to be familiar with Niteblade and the style of content we run. If you’re interested and would like more information email me at Rhonda@Niteblade.com

Just a super quick update to let you in on our current submission status. We are still open to both fiction and poetry. The oldest fiction submission in my inbox is from July 21st and the oldest poetry submission is from July 29th.

If you submitted prior to that and haven’t heard back from me, I didn’t get it so please re-submit and be sure you follow the guidelines.

As a relevant aside, if you follow us on twitter @NitebladeZine I tend to update the submission status’ there more frequently than here.

Just a quick status update on how things are going behind the scenes here at Niteblade

I sent out my nominations for the Dwarf Star award mere moments ago. Yay! The bulk of my nominations came from 2009 issues of Niteblade, but if you’re  a poet and would like to know how to nominate work that wasn’t published at Niteblade, voila:

Dwarf Stars is the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s yearly edited anthology of short-short poetry. We are trying to find the best speculative short poetry of 10 lines or less published in 2009. We define “speculative” as “science fiction, fantasy, horror, mythic or any combination or variation of the above.” The deadline for nominations for 2009 poems is August 31, 2010.

This is what you can do to help.

1. Send us your 2009 short poems of 10 lines or less.
2. Send us recommendations of 2009 short poems of 10 lines or less that you’ve read and think are deserving along with publication information and the e-mail addresses of the poets, if you have them.
3. There is no limit to the number of poems you can send.
4. You do not need to be a member to send poems/recommendations.

Send these poems to us at dwarfstars@sfpoetry.com. You do not need to be a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association to send poems/recommendations. Please include the words “Dwarf Stars Submission” in the title of the e-mail.

In other, more Niteblade-centric news I have pretty much firmed up the ToC for the September issue and will be sharing that in the next couple days. Getting the September issue ready to go mostly falls now to the work of Marge, BD and Jo, but I still have some paperwork-type things that will keep me busy for a little while and likely slow my progress through submissions, however, I’m not that far behind right now.

The oldest fiction submisson in my inbox is from June 29th, and the oldest poetry one is from July 8th. If you submitted prior to those dates and haven’t heard back, I didn’t get it. Please re-send.

Just a quick note to let you know that the impossible has happened. My submission inboxes are both empty. Empty! That means I have responded to every submission I’ve received as of this exact moment. If you’ve not heard from me I didn’t get it, so please resubmit. It also means I need some more submissions to consider for our September issue. As of right now I don’t have very many pieces accepted, so there are lots of spaces left for your work.

p.s. We re-opened to fiction submissions today.

Just a super quick update on submission statuses around here. I have responded to every poetry submission I’ve received and currently the oldest fiction submission waiting for me to read it is from March 27th. If you submitted before that and haven’t heard back from me, I didn’t get it. Please re-send.

Also, for more frequent updates on submission stats, consider following us on Twitter at @NitebladeZine

Just a super quick update on the status of submissions waiting to be read. The oldest submission in my fiction pile that’s waiting to be read is from February 17th and the oldest poetry one is from February 2nd. If you submitted prior to that and haven’t heard back from me either I didn’t receive it or my response got gobbled by a spam filter or something. Resubmit or drop me an email at rhonda@niteblade.com. I’d recommend the former.

I’m currently reading submissions with an eye toward placing them in the June issue.