Shooting for that 1 in 350 chance

There's a fascinating thread at Clarkesworld Magazine people should read, where editor Neil Clarke comments about submissions. According to Neil, out of the last 4180 submissions they received, their acceptance rate averaged around 1 in 350 submitted stories.

What fascinates me is Neil stating that "near misses" (which I take to mean submissions that almost made the cut) number about 1 in 35. That means for Clarkesworld, out of every 350 submissions there is one acceptance and 10 near misses. Everything else didn't have a chance in hell for some reason, be it bad writing, bad plots, wrong story for the wrong market, and so on.

It's often said that submitting fiction is a numbers game, and this proves it. But these numbers likewise show that if you write a great or very good story which meets the guidelines for a particular market, you actually have decent odds. Because what these numbers tell me is that the vast majority of submitters to Clarkesworld have no chance of landing an acceptance or a near miss. Instead, they are so out of the ballpark that they aren't even competing in the same game as the writers Clarkesworld usually publishes. And based on my editing experience, this is probably true with most magazines.

Comments

[Adam]

Clarkesworld is a very niche market, though. They know exactly what they want. I've had a tough time exactly figuring out what that is, but I think there are magazines that are more open and ones that are more closed. Clarkesworld seems like one of the more closed markets.

[Jason Sanford]

I must admit I've never had any luck with them. But they're a great market which I really enjoy reading. I also appreciate that they are so open about their submission process.

[Adam]

Yeah, I'm 0 for 8 there I think, but I really respect their openness about pretty much every aspect of the mag business.

[Phil Maloney]

A related question would be, "What fraction of new writers do they publish?", where "new" means "Never before published in Clarkesworld", not (necessarily) previously unpublished. Somebody went through these numbers for the Big 3 American print magazines over on John Scalzi's website a while back; my recollection is that Asimov's was far and away the most open, with 20% of the content from new writers, while Analog and F&SF were at the 5% level. (Perhaps Neil Clarke discusses this in the thread, but I need more web distractions like another hole in my head.)

[Adam Walker]

I think that was actually based on Campbell-eligibility, those percentages, rather than first-published in those venues. I don't think anyone has sat down and worked that aspect out. I think for CW their numbers were 61%. That was back . . . in 2008?

[Neil Clarke]

Yes, Sean was using Campbell-eligibility at the criteria for "new" writers. His stats can be found here:
http://oldcharliebrown.livejournal.com/234678.html

[Phil Maloney]

Interesting! Thanks for the correction and the link.

[Kellye Parish]

Those are actually really encouraging odds - after having worked as an editorial assistant at Black Warrior Review (mostly as a data logger and mailer of rejection slips) I'm more aware than ever of how much bad or inappropriate writing comes through the door of a lit mag that doesn't even make it past a first page read.

It really is a "you either got it or you don't" game, and the writers who act professionally and submit high quality work are competing on a WHOLE different field than the great unread masses. An overwhelming majority of submitted work to lit mags just isn't technically sound enough to be published yet (if at all).