To participate in what some other short fiction markets are doing, we thought we would share the statistics from our recent submissions period for the upcoming Dragon Gems (Summer 2023) anthology.
By the Numbers
| Submissions (Total): | 283 |
| Word Count (Total): | 1,144,050 |
| Word Count (Average): | 4,043 |
283 submissions in 31 days is about twice the number we were prepared for. So, yes, we are a bit behind in our final evaluations of some of the stories. Please be patient a little longer. (Yeah, we should have learned our lesson from last year.)
Submissions by Date
There doesn’t seem to be anything special about the dates on which there was a spike in the number of submissions — except, of course, January 31, because most of you like to wait until the final day/hours to submit your stories. (We also have no explanation why there were no submissions on 01/06. We did receive email inquiries that day, just no actual submissions.)
Original Stories vs. Reprints
We received a much greater proportion of original stories to reprints than we did during the previous open submissions period. We like this a lot, as we love to give new authors as chance at their first publication.
Required Information
(Or, as I like to call it, “Let’s see who can follow instructions!”)
Most of the authors who submitted stories managed to provide all of the information that we request on our submissions page. Some of them buried it a bit in the exposition in their cover email, but we did find it. (No points were deducted for that. This time.) A few of the authors provided only some of the information in their cover email (Partial) or only attached the submission with little or no information (None).
Pro tip: If we have to open the manuscript (or copy it from the email header) to get all of the information we need to properly record your submission, we are already cranky before we even begin reading it. In future submission periods, these submissions will be rejected immediately with a (mostly) polite note.
Pro tip: Check the publisher’s website for their current submissions requirements before you submit your story. Services such as Submission Grinder don’t always have the latest version in their market summaries. And all markets do not have the same requirements.
You might also be interested in our presentation from WorldCon and BayCon: “Preparing Your Manuscript for Submission“.