Category: slush Page 2 of 5

The next series charts focus on wordcount for submissions from 2019, 2020, and 2021 at Clarkesworld Magazine. (We raised our upper wordcount limit on submissions to 22,000 at the start of 2019.) For the purposes of these graphs, wordcount is rounded to the nearest thousand.

The average wordcount for submissions during this window was approximately 4,800, but the most popular length was 2,000 or 3,000 words.  Prior to increasing our upper limit, the average length was a steady 4,600. There are clearly more short stories in circulation than novelettes (stories between 7,500-17,499 words) or novellas (stories over 17,500 words).

Please note that this graph starts at 75%. The volume of short stories is considerably larger than novelettes and novellas.

Now let’s look at what we accepted in those years:

Going by this you might think we prefer short stories (works under 7500 words), but it’s not a coincidence that, even with annual variation, it nearly mirrors portions of the shape of the submissions graph. We simply have a lot more to choose from.

And this provides me with another way to demonstrate the pointlessness of acceptance rates:

This chart, using a different perspective on the same data, makes it look like we actually favor novellas.

The only reason it looks like a smart move to be writing on the longer end of our wordcount range is that we receive fewer submissions at those lengths. A single acceptance carries considerably more weight than one for an equally strong (or even stronger) story at a shorter, more popular, length. While we would love to see more novelette and novella submissions, it shouldn’t be with the expectation that your odds of publication will be any higher by doing so. In fact, we expect that an increase in submissions at that length would simply flatten that graph.

The following is a representation of submissions to Clarkesworld Magazine broken down by genre since 2017.

Authors: Don’t read too much into this. Acceptance rates are fundamentally misleading. They suppose that all stories are equal in quality and we all know that isn’t true. We also know that the perception of quality is variable and usually evolving. You might even think that a particular genre is favored, but that doesn’t mean your odds are better if you write in that genre. The things that might keep us from accepting a dark fantasy story will also keep us from accepting a similar science fiction story. For example, being predictable or formulaic transcends genre. (No one ever thinks they are doing that, but it happens all the time. Editors read a lot and have emotional distance from your work, so we’re more likely to spot it.)

The outer ring is all submissions.
The middle ring is second round submissions.
The inner ring is acceptances.
All accepted stories came from open submission. We don’t solicit stories.

We stopped considering horror submissions in 2018. After dropping horror, our overall acceptance rate climbed to roughly 0.55%. Over the last five years, the percentage of submissions reaching the second round has dropped significantly and the conversion from second round to acceptance has grown from 8% to nearly 35%. These changes are the likely result of our work with the slush team and how we recruit, monitor, and provide feedback to them.

Standalone images for years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Strictly by the numbers, here’s a quick snapshot of Clarkesworld’s 2020 output.

• 12 issues
• 69 authors
  • 36 authors had never been published in Clarkesworld before
  • 8 (possibly 10) had never been published before, 2 others were first professional sales
• 76 stories (classified by Hugo Award categories below)
  • 44 short stories
  • 30 novelettes
  • 2 novellas
• 552,820 words total
• 0 solicited works (all works were published from open submissions, not by invitation)
• 24 interviews
• 12 articles
• 76 podcasts
• 12 works of art for our cover

On seeing that we crossed the half-million words mark in 2020, I thought I should see how many words were submitted. Turns out that the 2020 slush pile contained 63,752,717 words.

In the middle of 2020, I posted some data about the history of international submissions at Clarkesworld. Now, with 2020 behind us, I decided I to fill in the rest of the year’s data and see if anything changed.

Before I go any further, I’m often asked why I care about this subject. Quite simply, I believe that to get the best stories, you have to cast a wide net. Since science fiction is global, I think the net should be too. No country, region, or language has a monopoly on great science fiction. Unfortunately, the history of the field works against my goal. For various reasons–which could be a post in itself–a large percentage of writers around the world don’t feel welcome. I’ve said it before, the number one question I’m asked by authors from other parts of the world is whether or not they are allowed to send me a story. Sure, I can reach the ones that ask, but the others take more work. These posts, and the data behind them, help me track the holes in the net and any monitor any progress (or lack of) made over the years.

These efforts do not determine or shape what we will accept. They influence what we can accept. They create opportunities for us to discover something we might have otherwise missed out on. On principle, we do not solicit stories. Every story in the slush pile is given the same opportunity. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve accomplished previously, or where you are from.

Let’s start with the first graph:

Even with a half-year of extra data, we didn’t see much more than a 0.5 variation in the data from mid-year to full-year. The trends observed in the first half of the year held. This was a pleasant surprise. On a monthly level, 2020 didn’t follow any of the regular patterns. It was clear that the pandemic was having an impact, but in the aggregate, the ups and downs balanced out. As the year closed, we inched (by seven stories) past our previous annual record for total submissions. While it’s been fairly typical for our submissions volume to increase from year-to-year, we did experience a significant decrease when we stopped considering horror stories. That gap has now been filled and we are back to averaging 1100 submissions per month.

The orange line in the above graph represents submissions from the US. As we’ve managed to encourage submissions other countries that percentage has steadily dropped, often around a percent each year. In 2020, however, we saw a change that was nearly double that of the largest shift we’ve experienced in the past. Percentages don’t tell the whole story though. Submissions from the US grew by several hundred in 2020. Looking at these numbers, it helps to keep in mind that the US only represents around 4.25% of the global population.

It’s easier to read the graph when you pull the US out. Due to their weight, the UK, Canada, Australia, and India have been broken out and their own lines. It’s worth noting that India and Australia are now running within 15 stories of one another. Trends for both suggest that India will pass Australia soon.

“Other” is not my favorite way of representing things, but it helps demonstrate how significant the remaining countries are in aggregate. The top ten in “other” are Nigeria, Germany, Brazil, Netherlands, New Zealand, Ireland, Japan, South Africa, Philippines, and Italy. Of those, Nigeria has shown the most significant growth in recent years and has started moving away from the pack. At their current rate, they’ll be broken out from “other” next year.

Side note: There are some interesting country-level trends involving the genres we’re receiving. I’ve done some preliminary work on this and hope to find the time to complete it. As our publication stats would indicate, we do publish some genres more than others, so understanding these trends could be quite helpful.

This was the only chart with a significant change over mid-year. I would have been surprised if we didn’t see an increase, but to have surpass 2019’s high is a pleasant surprise and another positive metric for the year.

The work continues.