The Big One Hundred

I have to smile—my last post talked about a long dry spell, not a single placement in February, which was my worst February since 2016, before I had placed anything at all! But I just had my best March ever, four placements. And three of them at pro rates! The last is my one hundredth placement and you can bet I’m feeling very chuffed about that!

On March 1^st my horror piece Prophecy of the Beast was picked up by the anthology Deep Sea, from the Australian publisher Black Hare Press, my second story with them. The following day my SF short Moongrove by Earthlight found a home with Selene Quarterly: I wrote it for them a year ago but missed their submission window by a couple of days, so am very glad it was right up their alley. They’re still paying the older pro rate, but I’m happy to count it as such.

Three days later, I had an amazing windfall placement: I sent my Sherlock Holmes piece The Mystery of the Perspicacious Waif to Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and they bought it promptly, but, as the story driver introduces an occult element, the editor suggested it appear in another title from their stable—nothing less than the grand old lady of American Horror fiction, Weird Tales! WT pays right up in the pro range, so I couldn’t be happier.

Then I had a three week drought. The pandemic was starting to bite in that period and I wondered if the flow-on effects would mean an especially long time between drinks, but yesterday I scored a pro placement with the Colorado publisher Third Flatiron, for an upcoming SF anthology, with my short The First Day of Winter. I was particularly pleased to score a proper pay rate for my hundredth, and can currently say 15% of my placements pay professionally!

I have around ninety submissions in play and several more stories to write for upcoming deadlines—so I better get busy!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Header image from a royalty-free source.