Here’s a question we get sometimes: When should I expect to hear back from you after I’ve submitted my story?
It’s kinda hard to say, since I’m the one reading all of the stories. If we get a lot of stories, it takes longer to hear back from us.
First of all, we will always send a confirmation of receipt email once we’ve received and downloaded your manuscript. If it has been a few days and you have not gotten a short, polite “Thank you for your submission, blah blah blah,” it means we probably didn’t receive your manuscript, in which case, try to follow up no later than the 10th of August. We’ll allow for some grace depending on the circumstances, but it depends on more factors than I can really outline here.
Now, regarding rejections and offers:
If you submitted to us on the first day of submissions and it’s taking awhile to hear from us, it likely means we’re still considering your story but haven’t reached a final decision based on our budget and space constraints.
If you submitted to us on the last day of submissions and it’s taking awhile to hear from us, it likely means we haven’t gotten to your story yet. We really do try to give everyone who submits a fair shake, but there does come a point where I’m pretty happy with a stack of stories that I’ve read, and every story I read after that stands a chance of getting in means bumping off something I’d already been strongly considering, possibly even set my heart on!
So, it’s not a bad idea to submit early if you can! [and by early, I mean on the first day that we are open, not before we open–please don’t do that].
I’ll try to have everything settled by the end of September: that’s the target. Earlier would be nice. If we’re still holding onto your story by sometime in September but we haven’t contacted you with an offer yet, we may contact you to let you know that you haven’t been forgotten about and are still under consideration.
Again, the biggest factor is how many stories we get. Could be a hundred. Easy peasy. We get nearly 200 or more like we have some years? That makes it tougher. Like I said, we try to give all the stories a fair shake, but we’re really limited in how much we can afford to buy and place. And yes, I will play favorites with past contributors and IPs I’m personally a fan of, but there’s never a guarantee.
Cirsova 