In Print December 2019 (and Progress)

Apologies for no update in November! Quick recap, there were two placements, my fantasy short Hubris in Retrograde was picked up by the Black Hare anthology Pride, one of their Seven Deadly Sins collection, and though this was a non-paying volume it opened the way to submitting to their paying volumes. Then at the end of the month my SF short Apocalyptic Visions scored a place with the UK online mag Emerging Worlds.

December has been a quiet month in previous years, but this one has had a flurry of action. My Victorian occult-detective piece The Vicar of Sexton’s Deep was picked up for the Black Beacon Book of Mystery, publishing in about a year, then Lovecraftiana accepted my cosmic-horror short The Tower of Dreams, for the Lammas 2020 issue. And finally (I say finally, but there’s a fortnight left in the year!), my mermaid piece Sylvie in the Blue was taken by the magazine Aether and Ichor to appear on January 1^st, 2020. That’s both my mermaid stories now placed.

Also appearing this month in electronic and paperback formats is the anthology Not Far From Roswell, from Pole to Pole Publishing, cover above, featuring my SF short The Man with the Alien Aura. I had fun with that one and was delighted it placed on the first submission. You can track it down at these links:

A second anthology is coming out at this time, but the two stories I have in it are written under pseudonyms and I’ll be keeping that line distinct from my mainstream material.

I so far have three pieces publishing next month, and plenty more writing to do to route stories to open markets. Look out for my fourth anniversary roundup post on January 7^th, 2020, which will feature the statistics of my market performance, current tallies and so forth—always interesting to compare from year to year.

Cheers, Mike Adamson

1500

Over a year ago I exceeded 1000 submissions and had intended to post on that milestone, though I don’t remember actually doing so. Well, I just passed 1500, and I’ll post about it now!

When I began this enterprise I could not conceive of such figures. I was feeling my way, certainly, and increasing the frequency of submissions over time as I dropped into a working mode. A rejection comes in, I log it, redirect the story to some other appropriate market, and log that, both in personal records and at Submission Grinder (it’s great to be able to cross-reference the two for accuracy). Wait, repeat as necessary…

This is not the place to look at the statistics, that comes up on a couple of months when I reflect on the fourth year of the project, but 1500 submissions down is quite an achievement. It’s also a frank acknowledgement that over 1300 of them have been rejections, as well as that there is absolutely nothing unusual in this. It’s how the industry rolls these days, a fact of life.

I have no intention of quitting, and see myself in another year looking back on stats and saying similar things, but I would certainly like to break into the novel field. Short stories are an artform all their own, but novels are where the proper money can be found (unless you find a way to sell consistently to the pro end of the short story industry, which is a mystery to most). I have a number of novel ideas in hand, but picking the right one to develop in the current market is a matter of research, thinking it through, then committing to it. I’ve not completed a novel in many years, so it would be something of a renaissance for me.

1000 submissions was not even a bump in the road, it went by quickly in the flurry of work, and I don’t think I marked the occasion in any way. Perhaps this time I’ll raise a glass of something to the possibilities of tomorrow, before getting my head down over the next story. Because there’s always another story to write, another market calling for submissions, therefore another opportunity to make a mark, earn a few bob, and add to one’s professional capital before searching out that agent or publisher for wider endeavours to come.

Mike Adamson

In Print October 2019 (and Progress)

Two Austalian titles have gone live this month, Aurealis #125 (below), with my story The Witch Who Wove Dreams, a magical realism piece set in 17^th century Holland; and Andromeda Spaceways #76 (above) featuring my apocalyptic piece Rats, a tale of the years after the Earth has become uninhabitable without the buffer of technology.

Click here to order Aurealis.

Click here to order Andromeda Spaceways.

Also due this month is the anthology Not Far From Roswell, featuring my short story The Man with the Alien Aura, and I’ll update this post when it comes available.

And I’ve placed two stories this month so far, New Myths bought the “Middle Stars” pieced Wharf Rat on the 9^th, for publication in about a year, and on the 19^th Alban Lake picked up my Lovecraftian piece The Golden Land for their anthology Dream-Realms of Cthulhu. News about these releases as it comes available!

UPDATE (25/10/19)

Well, Roswell isn’t out yet, but Lovecraftiana V.4 No.3 is, the Halloween issue for 2019, with my story The Last Hunt, a tale of the world in an age damned to endure the return of the star-spawned elders.

And it looks like an extra placement, just sorting out some details, there may be a bit of a story to tell about this one! Next time...

UPDATE

Re that last comment above, my “Middle Stars” piece Petrichor was picked up by the anthology Wordland 8, which I learned late in the month after an email snafu meant I didn’t get the acceptance message some three weeks earlier. GRRR!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Progress, September 2019

I’m unsure if I have anything coming out this month, though the next Aurealis won’t be far away. What is worth blogging are two new placements during the first half of September which bring me to 82 overall.

First, my fantasy short The Demonologist of Kraith   was picked up on the 10^th by the anthology series Fall Into Fantasy 2019, my second story with this stable (the first was One Shot Kill with their companion title Spring into SciFi 2018, early last year). Kraith is another of my “Avestium” tales, the fourth to be published so far.

Then on the 13^th, my SF piece Rats was accepted by the other big Australian magazine Andromeda Spaceways, my second appearance with them. Rats is part of my cycle of stories detailing the descent of the world into non-inhabitability a hundred years from now.

Also of interest, my volume of submissions is greater than at any previous time, with my record for total number of submissions in play having twice reached 99. I was unable to find that extra submission to round it up to 100, no matter how hard I mined my material, though. I’m currently on 95, with new material in preparation.

Cheers, Mike Adamson

In Print August 2019 (and Progress)

Just published, my Middle Stars short The Stars of Home is live at Trouble Among the Stars #3, which you can find here.

Recently sold, The Witch Who Wove Dreams was picked up by Aurealis, my fourth placement with them and 78^th overall. I’m very proud of this as Aurealis is a leading science fiction title Down Under. I expect publication later in the year.

Rejection rate remains high, the market constriction certainly still seems to be in force. I have 96 submissions in play, though in real terms maybe a dozen less, as there are a few multiples among those, and a group of older submissions which may be dead or in limbo—it’s hard to think otherwise when queries go unreplied to, and one must make a call on when to declare them dead and move on.

My file of completed stories is up to 214 items, with plenty to come. I’ll be writing some mystery material next for anthologies open, and this could lead to new avenues of opportunity.

UPDATE 

Two acceptances have come in on consecutive days (27^th & 28^th of August), first my SF short The Man with the Alien Aura was accepted by the anthology Not Far From Roswell, then my fantasy short Pilgrim to the City of the Dawn scored a spot with the new JayHenge anthology Whigmaleeries and Wives' Tales. Not sure of publication schedule for the latter, but the former is due in October. Will post when news comes available. For now, here’s a screen shot from Submission Grinder, showing both!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

In Print, July 2019 (and Progress)

Well, maybe the last post’s gloom was not entirely justified, as I’ve scored two placements during this month so far, bringing me to eleven for the year. I’m not ready to say the downturn is over, neither is at pro rates so the new tax year’s income is building slowly, but…a placement is a placement.

Pelagus was the second story I ever placed, and was published in the anthology Ecotastrophe II in 2017. It was just picked as a reprint up by the British online magazine The New Accelerator, and you can read it on the site. You need to subscribe, but a pound a month is very reasonable. Go to:

                                   

https://thenewaccelerator.com/pelagus-by-mike-adamson/

The other placement was also in the UK, my Victorian short Silver Scales was picked up by Kzine, my second appearance with them, and is slated at this time for issue 26, due in January 2020.

Also, I’ve had some short-listings recently, “The Witch Who Wove Dreams” at Aurealis, and “One Way Street” at Stupefying Stories. Fingers crossed on these and the other nine short-listings in play. I have 85 submissions in progress at this time and plenty more stories to write

Hoping for action in the months ahead,

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Patterns in the Data

I’ve been writing the posts for this blog since May 2016 and have broken down my market results data in fairly statistical fashion—it must be the ol’ scientific training coming to the fore. Various patterns emerge from data, this is how we observe the subtler workings of the world around us, and I have noticed some trends worth discussing, especially for benefit of anyone considering getting into the field at this time.

It would be fair to say that any particular endeavour which requires one to mesh with the workings of society in general is likely to reflect the issues and mechanisms of society in one way or another. This is somewhat perplexing from the standpoint of writing, especially speculative fiction, as the field divorces itself thematically from the real world much of the time. Yet it must also reflect something of that world to find resonance with its readership, and writers could do nothing worse than write in a vacuum. But, all creativity aside, marketing one’s work is an entirely different area, calling for thorough meshing with society, and in this the influences of the “real world” become painfully apparent.

Every writer is familiar with rejection. I have posted on this subject in the past with regard to how a writer copes with being turned away. Nothing has changed in that regard, but circumstances are “pushing the envelope” as pilots used to say. It seems like the “nos” are piling up at an unprecedented rate these days, and I checked my figures to see to what degree I was imagining it.

I’m not. I keep a record of how many days elapse and how many rejections accumulate between acceptances, and if this is any sort of metric for the state of the market, the market is in deep trouble—and by implication, so are writers.

The pattern I observed over a couple of years was simple enough: a “long period” acceptance (defined as 10, 20 or more days) followed by two or three short-period acceptance (0-15 days or thereabouts), then back to a long-period wait. This reflected never less than fifty-something submissions in play, sometimes over sixty, and supported 32 acceptances in 2017, and 26 in 2018.

About September 2018 I noticed a significant downturn in rate of acceptance, and compensated by working my endeavour harder. In the early months of 2019 I raised my submission volume by about a third and now have never less than eighty-something submissions in play. This automatically means there will be proportionally more rejections in any given period, I understood and accepted this from the beginning, but the numbers are saying something else.

My submission rate has risen by one third, but my rejection rate is now double what it was just three months ago, and is still accelerating. That really is the bottom line—it is now much harder to match stories to markets than it was a year ago, let alone three years ago when I began.

Why should this be so? The obvious answer is that the world has gone downhill in the last three years and the economic structures have flowed down to street level. The first thing that goes by the board is leisure spending, and indulging in fictional escapism is fully as much a leisure activity as watching a movie or going to a pub; it is also less popular than either, so there is no real surprise that the publishing field is suffering. I’m sure there are many statistics out there to be mined, but from my own observations I can make some simple inferences. I began submitting in January 2016 and since then, and just amongst the group of outlets to which I have submitted, twenty-three markets have closed! These include professional market-leaders such as Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Apex and Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. Every publisher has a very good reason for retiring from the game, few do so willingly, and while it is true that new publishers have launched new markets (DreamForge, Legendary, Space and Time and so forth) it is an inescapable conclusion that the marketplace is tighter, harder and less forgiving for publishers. They are obviously not selling enough copies to make it attractive to continue, and in some cases new publishers have bankrolled their early editions to the tune of several thousand dollars in the faith that sales will pick up and their enterprise will become solvent.

For writers this means a shrinking marketplace, especially where seasoned, well-established outlets are concerned, and consequently greater competition. At this time The Bronzeville Bee, for instance, turns away eighty stories for every one they buy, and it is quite usual for an anthology to receive a thousand submissions or more, from which to select ten or twenty. Result: a lot of disappointed writers, less ability than ever to make any kind of living from writing, and ever greater headaches for publishers who battle gamely on in the face of a reading public whose leisure dollars are more and more often required for necessities.

So the downturn in publishing can be laid at the door of austerity, capitalism gone mad, whatever you want to call it, the diversion of capital from the general public to the elite. Without getting political, we live in the real world and are subject to its tides and pressures, and can do very little about it other than hone our craft ever sharper, keep the faith and work harder, as everyone is always exhorted to. I hope to get my submissions up over a hundred by branching into other genres, such as mystery, trying for a bite of that particular cherry. And above all, maintain the perhaps pathetic belief that better times will come and, when they do, publishing will resurge and take we writers up with it.

I’ve seen diminishing returns over the last three years in terms of total numbers of placements over time, yet maintained the same relative income in the last two years, so the average value of acceptances has indeed increased. In addition, come September, the US professional rate is going up by a third, and when lucky enough to score a pro placement this will be very good on the exchange rate. So I’ll stay on the horse and pursue my career, and hopefully in a year will be posting some more positive observations.

Now, I must post this and go work on a story…

Cheers, Mike Adamson

In Print June 2019

Aurealis #121 was released at the beginning of June, featuring my story The Stranger of Morden. Here’s the Amazon purchase link ($2.99 download!):

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/942265

May was entirely quiet, I’m in one of my longest dry spells ever, just about to tick over to the highest number of rejections since the last acceptance in my whole writing experience, though I have a couple of weeks to go before it’s the longest period in days. I guess you just get slow patches, and the tougher the market becomes, the fiercer the competition, the more likely they are.

Never the less, I picked up a short-listing with Timeworn Literary Journal, for a Roman-era short story with an occult twist, I’m expecting a decision on that in the next couple of months. I’ve been as high as 89 submissions in play, and am at 86 at this moment. I expect a few of the older ones to go inactive shortly, I have a number of queries out and if there is no reply they are by default extinct and stories can be directed.

I’ve not written much lately, May was a month for doing other things, but I’m composing again at this time and it feels good to be putting words on paper again!

Best wishes,

Mike Adamson

In Print May 2019 (and Progress)

Things have been a bit slow in the last six or seven months, slow enough that I have got out of the way of regular postings, which is a shame as there have certainly been things to report, just nothing actually appearing in print. Thus no immediate motivation to get a report up since the end of February, which must be the longest period this blog has ever lain idle.

I’ve scored five placements since then, however. Just one in March: my SF outing The Omega Manifesto, written in 2015, was picked up by Four Star Stores for a release either late this year or early next. This was followed by my best April on record, with four placements.

I have a second outing with Storyhack Action and Adventure, who picked up my historical adventure piece Rakes and the Pirates of Malabar. At over 13000 words this is one of my longer placed works, and will hopefully kick off a series of adventures about my sword-wielding ex-East India Company agent Edgar Quincannon Rakes, in the violent, exotic world of India in 1837.

Next up, I scored a place with the Australian anthology Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror with my enviro-military actioner Tanks in the Snow. I wrote this story in 1994 and it’s been through a few drafts since, the underlying thrust being completely altered as history overtook it, while the action was preserved. It’s set in the Russian Arctic in the decades ahead, and offers a glimmer of hope in the battle against climate change.

Third for the month was an outing under a pseudonym for a US anthology, which I’ll keep separate from my mainstream writing, and the fourth for April locked in my third appearance in Aurealis, Australia’s flag-carrier SF magazine. This was a short-listing maturing as a sale. My story The Stranger of Morden concerns mysterious doings in a Dorsetshire village when an Elizabethan portrait is discovered in a country manor, depicting someone who doesn’t seem to be quite human. The piece has been slated for the next issue, which might be out this month – in which case I’ll post the cover here.

Last post, I commented on the way titles are shuffling, with Constellary Tales opening, making up at least somewhat for the closure of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, and a similar situation has occurred in the last month. Apex has announced its termination on indefinite hiatus as of #120, due in the next couple of months, while Dream Forge has launched and Legendary is forthcoming. All of these titles, coming and going, are pro markets, certainly Legendary aspires to become so as soon as possible. From the writer’s perspective this keeps the range of markets fairly stable, which is a good thing, and maintains the supply of fresh, vibrant new writing to the ever-hungry reading public.

Also worth mentioning, the rate at which “professional” is defined as commencing by the Science Fiction Writers Guild of America is set to rise in September this year, from 6 to 8 cents US per word. This is very good news for writers!

Hopefully I’ll be posting the new Aurealis cover later in the month (edits have not yet come in on the story) and I have 85 submissions in play, several being new stories written especially for themed markets. I have high hopes of finding some placements among them. There are two themed markets reading over the next few months for which I also have projects in note form to work up. I have completed fourteen stories so far this year.

Cheers, stay tuned for news, Mike Adamson

Header image from a royalty-free site.

Fan Mail and Feedback

It’s not often a writer gets comprehensive feedback in the form of a review of published work, and so far my story Tymass by Ring-Light with Heroic Fantasy Quarterly has garnered three such! The first was some fan-mail to the mag itself which the editor kindly sent on to me, and there have since been two reviews of HFQ #39, released at the beginning of February.

The longer and more comprehensive can be read here at Quick Sip Reviews:

The shorter appeared at Tangent, an online sci-fi review portal, and can be found here:

It’s certainly nice to know one’s work carries merit in the eyes of readers! Clearly it must have something going for it to make it into print in the first place, but one becomes inured to either blank rejections or the cursory “sorry, but your story didn’t impress us very much” sort of formula comment one sees from the high-flowthrough pro titles, so appreciative comment is something of a new experience!

I have a couple of new short-listings in play. Two “Middle Stars” stories are in contention at the moment, “Windwalkers” at New Myths, and “Mano á Xeno” at Constellary Tales. The latter is a brand new pro-paying market, and I’m thrilled to be getting a second look there.

As a point of interest, the industry needs pro markets desperately, and the coming of Constellary will hopefully go some way to counterbalance, from the writer’s perspective, the demise of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, due to close in June. The fewer pro titles, the fiercer the competition, between the worldwide stable of pro writers, is likely to become. Losing even one tightens the acceptance odds on the rest!

Hoping for a few placements in the not too distant future,

Cheers, Mike Adamson

In Print, February 2019 (and Progress)

Lovecraftiana Vol. 3 No. 4 appeared in the last week of January, and features my black comedy piece The Forgotten Supremo. If you like a little pizza with your Cthullian abominations, this is your meal-ticket! Buy here. I have now appeared in five of the dozen issues to date, a nice record!

Also, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #39 just went live, and you can read my story Tymass by Ring-Light free online here.  I have an invitation to submit some black and white art to accompany the story sometime in the next few months, which will be an interesting exercise for me, it’s been a long time since I put drawing pen to paper!

In other developments, the new Synth Anthology Series has picked up my SF short Naevus for a second edition, though I’m not sure when it’ll be coming available.

At this moment I have eighty stories out there, just one short of my record, and am waiting on a particular market to open for reading to make it 81.

UPDATE (6th February)

Alien Dimensions #17 has been released, featuring my story Sky Tears, one of my “Tales of the Middle Stars.” Find it here.

Cheers, Mike Adamson

In Print, January 2019 (and Progress)

Almost at the end of the month – things have been hectic for one reason or another, but there are actually a few things to report. Mythic #8 was published on the 23^rd of January, featuring my short story Dust Mote, a near-future space piece of catastrophe and rescue. The digital and paperback editions are now available, click here.

Back around the beginning of the month, Kferrin.com, the creative blog of Kristy Ferrin, published my fantasy short The Cursed Throne, one of my “Avestium” cycle of stores. You can read for free with a click here.

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly bought my short Tymass by Ringlight, second of my “Derros of Malovar” sword-and-planet tales (the first is still short-listed at Skelos). It should be publishing soon, so links next time. This story went through two rounds of rewrites and grew by some thousands of words, so is over twice the size of the as yet unpublished first outing.

And my Victorian tale of unease “Silver Scales” picked up a short-listing at the magazine Electric Spec – fingers crossed!

Placements have certainly been slow/quiet over the last few months, here’s hoping they pick up soon!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Looking Back from the Third Anniversary

It’s January 7th on this side of the dateline – three years exactly since I launched this assault upon the fiction marketplace. It’s always interesting to review progress at this time of year.

Overall: After 1068 days, I now have a total of 1089 submissions, 66 placements (16.5:1 subs/acceptance ratio), 68 stories on submission at this time (record still 81), thus 955 rejections (14.46:1 rejections/acceptance ratio).

In calendar year 2018, I made 353 submissions, receiving 26 placements (14.57:1 submissions/placement, or an acceptance rate of 7.36%, slightly down from last year’s 8.16%).

Average time between acceptances in Year Three was 13.69 days, up from 11.4 last year (32 acceptances).

In professional terms, I now have 12 full pro placements, though two are reprints in a pro anthology, generating a different pay scale than their initial run.

Productivity is way down, just 20 stories this year (down from 62 in 2017), totalling 130, 695 words (down from 247, 782 words previously). I have over 170 stories registered at Submission Grinder.

Real life tends to get in the way, the pressures of making a crust by means other than the highly competitive and occasional nature of receiving decent wedge from writing, plus of course teaching and home responsibilities. I would have liked to continue to churn out stories at the pace of the two previous years, but this year I have perhaps written a greater number of longer pieces, and marketed the whole opus more intensively. A cynical view may be that greater effort resulted in a lesser return, and this is true on the face of it. However, with a larger pool of stories to work with I can afford to market more intensively and always have material in hand – there are over fifty stories not on submission at this moment, and many choice marketplaces are either temporarily closed or on themed volumes.

I have a third placement with Compelling Science Fiction, in addition to reprints of my two earlier stories in their first hardback anthology. During this year I placed a flash short with the prestigious Nature/Futures, as well as with the exclusive Daily SF, and scored a fifth placement with Lovecraftiana, due out in a few weeks.

The outlook for the fourth year is difficult to predict, but I will do everything in my power to come as closer to 100 placements one year from today as possible. My first story for 2019 is already done and will be on its way to an anthology shortly, and my next writing task is defined, another anthology piece.

As ever, catch development here as they occur!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Header image from royalty-free source.