Submission is a Numbers Game

When I first started submitting my work to agents and publishers a couple of years ago, my writing coach Annalisa Parent told me that it is a numbers game. I didn't understand what she meant.

However, I did submit 75 times from the beginning of May last year and managed to get two short stories published, as I mentioned here and here. I had been submitting before, but it was somewhat haphazard and sporadic.

Annalisa told me that I should strive to get 100 rejections before analysing what I needed to change. 73 rejections over a period of 8 months come to just under 100 per year.

Now I'm beginning to understand what she meant.

I decided recently that it was time to get out my shotgun (scattergun for you Americans) and spray the field with submissions. I have sent out 60 queries and submissions over the last week and a half, covering two books (Shuttlers and Paranormal City), plus a single short story.

Yesterday, I even got my first rejection from a submission sent on the 14th of January.

And today? I've already sent another one out.

Look out, publishing world, here I come!