Quick Thoughts - My 2015 Writing Statistics

So today I thought, because I've been doing a lot of looking back at 2015, and because I just announced some works in progress, I'd give a bit of a peak today behind the curtain of my writing. Admittedly, I've been a bit down in terms of production for a little while. Part of this is because of other projects but I figure as 2015 is firmly behind and I'm feeling a little better at the moment about it, I'd go ahead and look at my writing statistics from last year. Nothing too thorough, but I do love me some statistics.

2015 total submissions: 198
2015 total rejections: 196
2015 total acceptances: 7

And that seems about right as far as year over year numbers go, though acceptances were definitely up more in relation to everything else. FYI this is only what I would consider "pro SFF fiction stats," so no smut and no poetry. But it shows a bit of an increase across the board from 2014, probably because I've gotten better at timing submissions and knowing where to submit stories in what order. The second half of the year continues to see a slow-down in submissions and rejections, probably corresponding with submission hiatuses at a few places, and especially bare are September and December, when things probably get a bit more busy personally as well as run into a great many publications being closed to subs.

Of the seven acceptances, two were accepted at the first place submitted to while others hit on their sixth, seventh, eighth, eleventh, and fourteenth submissions. The professional sales account for both(!) of the first submission acceptances as well as the eighth submission acceptance. Which leads me to assume that either I'm pretty good at targeting my submissions (both the first sub acceptances came from open themed flash calls) or else my stories are more sink-or-swim when it comes to hitting at a pro market.

August was an incredible month for me, with three acceptances, plus an additional one in September. Otherwise, my acceptances were clustered at the beginning of the year, with one each in January, February, and March. Which means during those times I was feeling quite good, but also means that I saw zero acceptances at all in April to July and in October to the end of the year. Very much a feast or famine kind of year, which was both incredibly cool and incredibly suck at times. Starting out the year with three solid acceptances (two of them pro) and then not selling another for another five months was tough. There were some smut sales in there, but still…

Lifetime through 2015 I'm sitting at 535 submissions and 497 rejections (which means I passed 500 rejections early this year, so hurrah?), with 16 acceptances. Which could be much worse. My longest sale in 2015 was just over 4000 words ("Nothing" at Betwixt) and my shortest 998 ("Capital Coffee" at Electric Spec). Four of the seven stories were flash, all under 1300 words. So flash is what seems to be selling, which is probably no surprise.

Anyway, there are my 2015 in writing stats. Maybe interesting to some? Whatever the case, thanks for reading!

All the best,

Charles Payseur