Shrapnel Submissions

[Failure16]

Hello,

Are multiple submissions for Shrapnel allowed?

I would like to thank this team for allowing such a product to exist. I ask because some companies encourage such behavior, whilst others discourage it. I understand that it would be unlikely for a magazine format to publish more than one story per author per issue. But it also not uncommon to have more than one story accepted for future publication.

Thank you in advance for any guidance you can provide in this matter.

Sincerely,


John-David Karnitz

[Paul]

By no means an official answer, but an advantage of individual submission is that you can roll in any corrections with future work. No sense in making the same error 5 times. At least until the first publishes.

[Failure16]

Thank you for the prompt reply. It is sage wisdom and truly appreciated.

The other side of that coin is that if the potential submissions already exist, the rejections will only happen if they are indeed submitted. In other words, the time would have already been invested in producing them. Therefore, the only question that remains is if it is frowned upon to submit multiple stories...*as individual items*, not en masse, as I had never actually considered that until this moment.

I can see a drawback in that if a story is rejected, it cannot be resubmitted following a rewrite (unless specifically asked for). In that case, there would be an advantage to not submit more than one story at a time, providing actionable feedback is included as part of the process. And that is not always the case, considering workloads and a variety of other factors behind the scenes.

But again, thank you for your input and insight!

[joechummer]

The official answer is that simultaneous submissions are fine; just be aware that, as of the moment, any given author will only have a max of two stories published in any given year (although the serials are an exception to this rule).

The unofficial, advice-laden answer? It's better to write one story, submit it, and see how that is received first before considering sending another. For example, what do you think would be more discouraging, especially to a new author: (a) a single rejection on a story, possibly with some advice on how to improve, or (b) five rejections on five stories right in a row, since they all have the same pitfalls in terms of characterization, storytelling, grammar, etc.?

[Failure16]

Again, thank you for your prompt reply and immensely helpful insight.

I hear you and understand. As to your question, I would say A, though I can see that for some, perhaps many, B would win out. I base that on the reality of the publishing world and that advice is not always forthcoming or even clear-cut when it is, and pragmatically in that [some of] the stories will be written regardless, so they exist and gain nothing by sitting on a hard-drive.

In any event, I suppose the best course is to see how the first submission turns out, then.

Once more, thank you for your thoughts.