Happy New Year! I hope you had a safe and happy holiday, and that you have a good and prosperous year ahead of you!
2019 was a pretty darn good publishing year for me. I tweeted about it, but I'm happy to recount here!
I submitted stories 162 times and received 11 acceptances! 11!!!
109 of my rejections were forms, 39 were personals, and I still have 18 stories pending.
I had 4 original short stories printed: "For Whatever We Lose", "The Pearls That Were His Eyes", "Fundamentals of Search and Rescue", and "One Hundred Years".
In addition, 2019 was certainly the Year of the Reprint!
"Sugar and Spice" and "Daddy's Girl" were both reprinted in audio format. "The Wave", from my Patreon, was reprinted in actual print.
I wrote 4 short stories, and started far more (at least a few of which are pushing the boundary of what 'short story' means and are edging more into novella and novelette territory, which is great, because there are so many places to send those pieces [Narrator: there are not.]) I wrote 1 novella, Run With the Hunted 2: Ctrl Alt Delete. I wrote 1 novel, which I will be querying, after people read it, I polish it, more people read it, and I polish it more. Oh and after I write a query letter and a synopsis.
I feel like when I was querying The Last Song, far fewer agents wanted a synopsis up front. I don't know if this is because many agents are using Querymanager now, or if in general it's just a better strategy for them. and I knew I'd have to write a synopsis, I just didn't think it'd be immediately.