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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Tiers and Tears

James McGirk (cloud across the sun that he is) has posted this interesting discussion on tiered rejections, complete with samples from his own fund.

2 comments:

Laura Maylene said...

It's nice of him to choose option #4 and personally respond to strong stories he liked. Maybe it's just me, but I get rejection #3 a lot more than the fourth option.

For me, postal submissions still seem to yield more personal rejections than the online submission managers. (Personal as in it's definitely a note tailored to your specific story instead of a tiered form). I guess going through the mail creates a distance that is eliminated through online submissions, where it's so much easier for writers to immediately respond, ask questions, etc.

Boondocks Journalist said...

McSweeney's tells some people they are "encouraged" to submit again-- is that their version of Tier 2? I was happy about it, but since it's been over six months since I sent my last submission, and no reply is forthcoming, I'm not feeling optimistic about my chances there.

I've received the second-tier rejection from One Story and a couple other places, but most of mine are just Tier 1, which has me tearing my hair out.

Except when I submit to science fiction mags. They -- and I'm talking about some fairly well-known, well-paying ones -- seem far more likely to send personal responses. Either that or my writing is just too weird for the literary folks.