Can it be six years since I sent out that first submission in a formal program to crack the writing market? I remember the submission, a ghost story (that hasn't placed to this day) to a magazine that's no longer around...
With all the craziness in the pandemic world, one could understand almost anything, I suppose, and, perhaps oddly enough, 2021 was my best year in terms of overall placements, while the 2020-2021financial year was my best in terms of income from writing. Meanwhile, I've not seen an actual placement since November 23rd, and the new year seems to be in no hurry to open its score.
Okay, onto the data (always the most revealing stuff!)
In six years, I have made 2448 submissions (495 in the last 365 days). I have 162 placements (15.11:1 submission/acceptance ratio, up from 16.008:1 last year), about 95 submission currently in play, including a few on pseudonyms (my record is now 103 total), thus 2192 rejections (13.52:1 rejection/acceptance ratio, have improved for the second year running (up from 14.27:1 last year).
In calendar year 2021, I made 91 more submissions than in 2020, receiving 40 placements, my best year by eight (over 2017). This is an acceptance rate of 12.375%, a major jump up on last year's 7.67% and well above the previous best, 2017’s 8.16%). Maybe folks are reading as they stay in isolation, which might translate into a healthier market—but the number of outlets that have folded in the last year is a clear indication that publishers are having a very hard time as well.
Average time between acceptances in Year Six was down from last year”s 11.7 days to 9.125 days, which is down a full third over 2019's figures. All the same, when you're in a dead patch, it seems to go on forever—currently, I've had 32 rejections in 45 days and I'm starting to forget what an acceptance looks like...
Professional placements are in the dumps for calendar year 2021, just one, “The Apotheosis of Rosie” at MetaStellar (free read).
Productivity has been low, 36 stories this year (down from 36 last year and 43 the year before, and little more than half my grand total of 62 in 2017), totalling 104, 309 words (down from last year's 186, 585, which in turn was down from 214, 998 in 2019.) I have over 260 stories registered at Submission Grinder, and some 290 in my personal list. However, though productivity has been low, marketing has been in high gear (one cannot, perhaps, do both at the same time), thus the better sales figures.
High points of 2021: The standout in this last year has to be my success as a writer of Sherlock Holmes. I now have placed ten of twelve completed stories, and many more in note form to come. In the last two years I have written 105, 363 words of Sherlock Holmes fiction, 85, 240 placed, and have produced 58, 565 words this year alone. I now appear in six anthologies from Belanger Books and will be submitting to a seventh in the month ahead, with every expectation of there being further opportunities. I have placed stories with Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine and The Strand, also, and hope to expand on those successes too.
I recently calculated that my total published word count is approaching three quarters of a million, a considerable figure, and my target is to raise that beyond the million mark, if not this year then next. I certainly aim to surpass two hundred placements by the end of this year, though 2022 had better get its finger out, we're a week in and there's been no action yet!
Also accounting for my less than stellar short story production this year, I've been working on a near-future urban fantasy novel set against the background of a climate-ravaged Italy. I have some 35, 000 words to go, then my next book-length project will be my first Sherlock Holmes novel. Period mystery is a most exciting field in which to work, and I have high hopes of launching a career as a novelist in the years ahead.
That's the state of play—so, on to year seven!
Cheers, Mike Adamson
