Anthology Submission Strategies that Work for Me

As I've mentioned before, all of my published fiction is in invitation-only anthologies. Now, I still haven't published huge numbers of stories, but my acceptance rate for anthologies has been very good. I'm here to tell you what I did, in case it might be helpful for you. I know for a fact that as an editor, I appreciate writers doing at least some of the following things.

First thing! If you want to improve your chances of getting invited to submit stories for anthologies, it is very helpful indeed to:

Go to writing conventions focused on the genre of your choice, and meet and be friendly with as many people there as possible, regardless of whether they seem like they can help you. BE NICE TO EVERYONE. Listen to them. Don't talk about yourself all the time. Ask about their work before you talk about your work (ideally, don't even talk about your work until they ask you about it). Have a cool business card and give it to them; ask if they have a card, but give them yours even if they don't.

Find a non-obnoxious way to let the world know that you like working with guidelines to write stories. Some writers actually hate doing that. I LOVE IT (<--see what I did there?). If you're going to be obnoxious, like me, be obnoxious in the best way you can!

Have a blog in which you write about things that interest you a couple of times a week. Penelope Trunk has excellent advice about that for you. Also, her career and homeschooling blogs are both outstanding, and she is hugely influential in my life right now. As she says, blogging lets people know your ideas about working in your field, and it helps them to know when and why to hire you. MAKE SURE YOUR CONTACT INFO IS ON IT. Many writers are super-cagey about their email addresses these days, presumably because of spam and trolls, or maybe because they haven't learned how to politely say no to requests, but speaking as an editor, it's hard to send you guidelines if there's no email address to send them to. I may be a weirdo, but I don't like those email forms people have on their websites.

Okay? So next, whether you have an invitation to submit or you're taking a whack at an open-call anthology, here are my tips.

Crucial, In My Opinion

Read the guidelines at least twice before you do anything else.

Know how long it usually takes you to develop and write a story, and schedule time to do that work, plus a little padding to cover things like getting sick, dealing with emergencies, having story troubles, general stress, and wandering in beautiful meadows to clear your head.

Write the deadline down on a calendar that you will use (paper or digital). Also write a reminder on the date you need to start working on the story. Otherwise you may forget all about it and miss the opportunity and have to admit to the editor that you forgot (I'm your editorial witness to the fact that this happens).

The first idea you get for a story? Don't use it. The second idea? Don't use that, either. Push into the territory of three or more ideas, twisting things around as much as you can, before you pick one to develop. Make it as "you" as you possibly can within the framework of the guidelines. Find the idea that only you would think of, because those first two ideas are pretty much guaranteed to be the ideas everyone would think of.

Turn in your story ON TIME at the LATEST. As in, on the date of the deadline, no later. I know time is hard! But still. Really. You might get an acceptance for a late story, but you won't look good doing it.

It's much better for you and your chances if you turn in your story EARLY. As in, as much before the deadline as you can manage while still submitting a reasonably finished and clean manuscript that you've read over a couple of times, and edited.

If it's really, truly impossible to turn in your story on time, like for emergency reasons, and an editor is expecting it, then email the editor as soon as you know you're running late, and be genuinely apologetic for the inconvenience, and grateful for any extension she can give you. But really try not to be late. Don't be late because you can't miss your favorite TV shows, or whatever. Keep your commitments.

Write a story that's within the length range specified in the guidelines. That's provided for a reason. If the guidelines say to query about longer stories, then query. If the guidelines don't mention ways to work out exceptions, don't try to work out an exception. Give the editor what she asked for.

Also Helpful, Possibly

If you know of anthologies on a similar theme to the one you're writing for, read at least a handful of the stories in them if at all possible, and look at the titles. See what's already out there, and get a sense of which ideas might be different enough to get your story noticed.

If you can, take a look at the editor's previous anthologies to see what kind of stories she's accepted before. This may not be very helpful, because tastes change and you need to stay true to your own voice when writing anyway, but, for example, if you hardly ever see a first-person POV in her previous anthologies, consider not using that POV for your story. Things like that are worth considering.

Depending on the editor, it may be okay to ask questions to get more information. Be careful about this, because some editors don't like to be bothered. I'm happy to answer writers' questions about my opinions and preferences when I'm editing. If I were running a contest, I'd have to give everyone the same information and not give anyone an advantage. If I'm soliciting material for a book, I want to get the best possible stuff for the book, so I appreciate it when people are motivated enough to find out what will work for me. This is probably another area in which I'm a weirdo, but I will cheerfully accept that designation.

This is getting long! Let me know if there are other tips I've missed.

How Being Social Helps Me as a Writer and Editor

Okay, first: TO BE A WRITER, ONE MUST WRITE.

To which I will add: TO IMPROVE AS A WRITER, ONE MUST LEARN AND PRACTICE.

However! There's a social element that has been helping to get my work published, and it's gotten me a job as an anthology editor, and I'm going to talk about that.

In a widely used and respected personality test (free to take here), I come out as an ENFJ (Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging), which clearly affects the way that I work. I'm not even the biggest extravert in the world, especially not relative to the general pool of Americans, but relative to groups of mostly-introverted writers, I end up looking super-social. This explains the number of people I'm connected with on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. I just love 'em. Bring on the people!

This might seem a little frivolous, but consider what it's brought me:

I was invited to submit a story for an anthology, when I had never been published before, on the basis of a five-minute conversation that wasn't even about writing, because I introduced myself to an author on a convention panel and complimented the awesome title of his book, and gave him my card. He put me on an invitation list. I wrote and submitted a story, and it became my first published story.

I was asked to write a book review for a magazine, which was later published in that magazine, because I spent four hours working at a convention party (and I also received an awesome t-shirt for that).

I became a slush reader for Clarkesworld Magazine partially because of a recommendation from an editor I had met at a convention, and the slush reading experience improved me as a writer and also gave me the experience to become a short-story editor.

I have evaluated a novel manuscript for an agent I know in the UK, because of work that I did for him on a book he was writing when I met him, which was before he even became an agent.

I was asked to contribute an interview for Writers Workshop of Science Fiction and Fantasy during a ten-minute conversation at a convention, which led me to interview my favorite author, Tim Powers (who, by the way, I had already met at a convention).

I've been invited to submit stories for six other anthologies as a result of meeting editors and a publisher at conventions, and three of those were accepted for the books. One of the ones that wasn't accepted for its anthology went on to make me a semi-finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest. I would not have written any of these stories, or my first published one, without the guidelines given to me for the anthologies.

Knowing that publisher I met made it easy to apply knowledge gained from an editor I had met, and turn my anthology proposal into a real project. All of the authors who have submitted stories for What Fates Impose are people I've met, or I've interacted with online, or have been recommended to me by people I've met.

Okay? So in every case listed above, I actually did the work. I wrote the stories and the review, set up and conducted the interview, read the slush, and volunteered my time and effort to help people in a variety of ways. But none of those opportunities would have been there for me if I hadn't shown up at conventions, introduced myself to people, genuinely liked those people, and continued to pay attention to what they were doing online even when I couldn't see them in person. I was doing these things before anything of mine was published, and I'll continue to do them because I would definitely do the same things just for fun, even if I didn't expect to get anything else back from it at all. But the honest truth is that I have the start of a career because of being friendly and interested in people.

Coming soon: How I Learned to Be Social Despite Having Introverted Parents

Why "Maybe" Is Way Harder than "Yes" or "No"

I'm making decisions for What Fates Impose.

I know what I hoped to get when I wrote the guidelines. I feel pretty good about the guidelines I wrote, given the stories I've received in response to them. However, for every anthology there are stories that must be rejected early on, because although they may be good in themselves, they may not be right for the book. It's sad to reject them, but it's also easy, because they just don't fit in with what I'm trying to do.

The stories that do fit are also easy to identify. A few come in that are close to perfect, both in style and content, and there are others that are close enough to be tweaked into shape with only a few changes. Everybody's happy about those. YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE HOW GOOD SOME OF THESE STORIES ARE. You know, if you read the anthology when it comes out, which I hope you will.

I'm here to tell you about the problem of the "maybe" pile.

If my reaction to a story is to think "maybe," then the author has gotten some things right. Completely broken stories are easy to dismiss. But there are so many possible combinations of right and wrong in a maybe. I could like the premise, but not the way it's written. I could like the character, but not the plot. I could like most of the story, but be confused about the timeline because of its structure. There could be too much backstory. There could be a vague ending, or an unsatisfying ending, or unclear motivations that make me wonder why a character does something. The story could have a good series of events that are summarized instead of being shown in scenes, or too much dialogue and not enough description, or too many similes and adjectives cluttering it up. There is an endless parade of possible unfortunate combinations, but if I'm thinking "maybe," there's something desirable enough about the story that I want to figure out a way that it could be fixed, if possible.

Then I have to answer some questions for myself. How much space do I have left in the anthology? How much time do I have to work out suggestions for story solutions? How much of a change would be too much to ask for a given story? How committed am I to including this one? Is the premise different enough from any other story I have that I really want to do whatever it will take to get changes made in it? Are the changes I'm considering consistent with what the author seems to be trying to accomplish with this story?

That last question is important to me. When I write stories and then receive critiques about them, I don't mind constructive criticism that will help me turn the story into what I want it to be. But it always makes me feel a bit sick to get suggestions that would turn the story into something completely different than what I wanted it to be, because then I wonder if I've messed up so badly that the reader can't see where I was trying to go. As an editor, is it better to pass on a story or to ask the author to turn it into what I want? That depends on how much of a change I'd be asking for. I have the right to want what I want for my book, but it might not always be the best thing for someone's story to be forced in that direction.

This maybe business can be agonizing. It's part of the job, though, and I'll keep at it until the job's done.

What Fates Impose: Inside the Anthology

When I was on Twitter yesterday, I mentioned that I'd like to tell people about the anthology-editing process, but I wasn't sure what or how much to say about it. It would not be right to discuss details about the stories for a variety of reasons, but I think it would be good for me—and possibly for other people—if I wrote down some of what goes on behind the Veil of Editing.

My friend Beth had a few good questions about it, so I'm going to answer those in this post:

"What has been the greatest delight so far? The biggest surprise? The hardest part?'

The greatest delight so far has been receiving and reading submissions. I came up with the idea for What Fates Impose, an anthology of original stories about divination, more than a year ago. I found a publisher who was interested in the idea last September. We had to work out the details of how we were going to do the project, and then I had to get authors to agree to write stories for it, and give them enough time to write. THAT'S A LOT OF WAITING. But when I finally started to get the stories, it was like presents arriving in my email, because look: I love to read. How much of a buzz do you suppose it is to have an idea of what kind of stories I'd like to read, and then be able to simultaneously support good writers and be the instigator of a bunch of stories like that being written? BIG BUZZ. Delightful!

The biggest surprise has been seeing how each of these writers work when handed a request to submit a story on a theme. Some of them communicate with me a lot, respond to email quickly, and ask a lot of questions to clarify what I'm looking for. Others are quieter, thinking things over for themselves. Some are super enthusiastic about an idea and agree to try it immediately. Others take a while to think about it before even deciding whether they want to try, and give me a more reserved answer about being willing to see what they can come up with. Maybe they'd all respond differently if given a different topic, or maybe this is their style all the time. I'll see about that over a variety of projects, because I already want to do this again. It's also a semi-surprise, every time, to see how each person chooses to approach the theme. I have an idea of what they're like as people, and in many cases I've seen some of what they've written before, but I get a different idea of the way they think when I see where they go within the guidelines I've sent them.

The hardest part is knowing for a fact that I can't accept all of the stories. I don't want to reject anybody's work! But I have to if I want to make the book I'm trying to make. There's only so much room, and some stories match what I want better than others, and that's the way the process goes. I'm also going to have to articulate what kind of changes I'd like to see in some of the stories, and get satisfactory changes back, before I accept them. That's work for me and for the writer, and I don't know how people will react to my comments on their stories. I want to make this as easy as possible for everyone, but I also want the stories to be the best they can be for the book.

I like it, though. This is the most satisfying work I've ever done. It suits me so well!

Coming soon: How Choosing Anthology Stories Is, and Is Not, Like Making a Mix Tape

(People under a certain age: replace "Mix Tape" with "Playlist.")

On Becoming an Editor

Anthologies are awesome.

I've spent large amounts of time with short stories for the last five years. As part of learning how to write them, I worked at Clarkesworld Magazine for three years as a slush reader, evaluating over 5,000 of the stories that were submitted during that time; for each of those, I had to write a few sentences about why I liked or did not like the story, and send my recommendation about it to Neil Clarke, the editor. That's a job that wears you out because practically all of the stories aren't good enough to get into a magazine that accepts only one per month from the slush pile (as it did then), and even the ones that I loved often did not make it into the magazine.

Whenever I recommended a story and Neil rejected it, he would send me a note to explain what hadn't worked for him, and I would learn from that. Sometimes, later on in the same year, I would see that a different magazine had accepted one of those rejected stories, and that taught me that publishing fiction is not just a matter of quality, it's a matter of taste. When you're the editor what you're really doing is demonstrating your taste. The stories Neil publishes win awards and get reprinted in "year's best" anthologies all the time, but guess what? Several times, stories I loved that Neil passed on ended up winning awards and getting reprinted in "year's best" anthologies, after other editors decided to publish them. If anyone out there reads this as me attempting to criticize Neil, who is a fantastic person with excellent taste, I will give you many, many demerits. Pay attention. What I'm saying is that everybody has different taste, and that's okay. But not everybody gets to be the editor.

I have finally worked my way into being an anthology editor, so this month I get to be the one who decides on what's going into a book, and what isn't. This makes me extremely happy. Here's what I've done so far.

I've already shaped the book's outcome by choosing the people I've asked to submit stories. I decided that an open submission process would be a bad choice for my first anthology, because who knows how many submissions I would get? REMEMBER THE SLUSH PILE. So I asked writers I either knew, or was familiar with online, to send me stories. I chose people for a few reasons: 1) I already knew I liked their writing, 2) they seemed interesting because of the way they presented themselves online, and/or 3) they seemed reliable and unlikely to screw me over with flaky behavior. Not all of them fit all three criteria, but you can't have everything! Most of them said they would send me a story, but several of them said they wouldn't. That's okay; you never know what people are working on, what will interest them, or what else is going on in their lives. I ended up with a great list of writers that impressed my publisher, so yay!

Because of dealing with reality, I knew I had to ask a greater number of people to submit stories than the number of stories the book would require. I am not looking forward to having to reject stories, but when you ask a bunch of people to write for your theme, you are absolutely never going to get only stories that work for what you want. That would be literally impossible. Can't be done. Won't happen. So you need to think hard about the number of people to actually ask, realizing that some percentage of those people will say no, and some percentage of the people who say yes may actually not end up sending you a story for an astonishing variety of reasons that may or may not be respectable. And of the stories you get, some just won't work for you as stories, and others will show symptoms of "did not read the guidelines" syndrome, and others will probably overlap in some unforeseeable way, or not go together. I'm starting to freak myself out. Maybe I should have asked a hundred more people to send me stories. I'm a worrier.

The submission deadline is tomorrow. I've already received a bunch of early submissions, which is good; that's kept me from losing my mind while waiting for the majority of them, which I assume will mostly come in at 11:59 pm tomorrow night. It is FASCINATING to read stories that I've asked for. Way better than the slush pile. Do you even realize how amazing it feels to send out guidelines and get stories back that fulfill them? Editing an anthology is THE BEST. Even though I'm anxious about the outcome, every step so far has been so satisfying. I love this. I'm looking forward to seeing what other stories I get, and putting the best ones together in an order that makes sense--ideally, that creates its own overarching story through the whole book, if possible.

I'm building a fantasy anthology called What Fates Impose. Watch for updates on the process! There's going to be a Kickstarter project to make this book the best it can possibly be.