March 30, 2012
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Facing the Quantity of Failure
Back in December 2011, I started tracking all my submissions and associated literary proposals on an Excel chart — noting when things had gone out, when I heard responses and what the responses were. I won’t bore you with all the details but since it only involved Grade 2 level math skills, I tallied up the results as of today:
Here is what I learned:
1. I write a lot.
2. I submit a lot.
3. I get rejected a lot.
4. I sometimes propose and submit things people don’t know what to do with.
5. I don’t get accepted very often. (Less than 1 out of every 35 submissions).*
6. Big conclusion: It looks like something of a mismatch between my work and the current state of the market and/or editorial expectations.If this was a business plan I was preparing for a company I would probably tell them to get into a different line of business. Or at least try a different product line or offer a different selection of services. But will my tracking and analysis exercise change what I write and how I write it? Probably not. This is my art and my vision — and while I really want to reach people with my work — it has to be my work and not an imitation of someone else’s vision that I figure will be more popular. This attitude may make me the next Dostoyevsky, or at least Joesph Conrad. Or it might make the 21st Century’s Ed Wood. So be it.
As for the value of my tracking exercise? Well, at least I have a realistic understanding of the situation and I can deal with that.
* There is something to be said for quality over quantity. When that story comes out this fall in the new Tesseracts anthology — it will make you laugh, cry, and happily kiss whatever the book will cost goodbye. Yeah, I’m very happy with that story.
