Fourth-Quarter Report

[dr_phil_physics]

From 2003-2006, I finished the year with 7 stories out in the field. This year, I upped the ante by ending up with 9 stories. Since I've managed to have the same number out or higher at the end of each year, that's setting the bar higher, which is pretty brash considering that when I came back from Christmas, I was down to only 4 stories -- with two markets that I would normally send submissions to closed for the moment. (grin) Somehow, since June 2002, I have never had zero stories out to market, which is all I can ask of myself.

The Totals:
176 submissions (42 "wins" - 119 "rejects" - 6 "No Calls")
50 short stories written, 9 currently in the field
4 published: 3 in print, 1 web + 7 additional stories online

Year          2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  2007(12/31)
Submissions     8*   24    26    26    40    52 (12)
Returns         3    22    26    26    40    50 (11)
-- Wins         0     5    10     7     9    11 (3)
-- Rejects      2    15    15    18    30    39 (8)
-- No Calls     1     2     1     1     1     0 (0)
Number Out      5     7     7     7     7     9 (1)
  at year's end
New Stories     8     9    11     8     7     7 (2)
New Markets     6     9     8     6     9     6 (2)
E-submissions   2     2     2     6    19    29 (6)
Sales           0     0     0     1     0     2 (0)
Prizes          0     2     2     0     3     0 (0)
-- Honorables   0     1     2     0     1     2 (1)
Paid            0     1     0     1     2     1 (0)
Pending Publ.   0     1     2     2     3     5 (0)
Published       0     0     1     1     2     0 (0)
-- Print        0     0     1     1     1     0 (0)
-- Web          0     0     0     0     1     0 (0)
Other Publ.     0     0     0     0     1     7 (0)
_______________________________________________ 
                               updated 01-11-08

* - Partial year stats for 2002. Numbers in (parens)
    are partial stats for the last quarter.
(1) Wins includes Sales, Prizes, Honorable Mentions,
WOTF Quarter/Semi/Finalists even without publication,
plus Encouraging Letters from Editors which just cannot
be considered the same as a straight rejection.
(2) No Calls include Contests canceled, Publications
gone under, Manuscripts lost by the USPS, and Manuscripts
withdrawn after Way Too Much Time (usually associated
with Publications gone under).
(3) New Stories is only for stories shipped, does not
include all 2004 Clarion workshop stories or chapbook
stories sent to friends and family or Ficlets.
(4) New Markets are those first-time submissions for
Dr. Phil, not necessarily a new market in the industry.
(5) Honorables include Honorable and Laudable Mentions
which do not win a cash prize, but may be eligible for
print or web publication.
(6) Pending includes all currently unpublished stories.
(7) Other Publ. include short stories placed on blog
http://dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com/
"A Rosebourne Christmas" for Christmas 2006,
and 7 very short stories at http://ficlets.com/dr-phil-physics.


BIBLIOGRAPHY of Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon
----------------------------------------
1. "The Gravediggers" in CrossTIME Anthology Vol. III. 
Santa Fe NM: CrossTIME, 2004.  pp. 44-63.  (August 2004)
ISBN 1-890109-06-1

2. "The Pulse of the Sea" in Northwest Passages: A Cascadian 
Odyssey / edited by Cris DiMarco, hosted by Cascadian Con.  
Port Orchard WA: Fandom Press, the co-operative division 
of Windstorm Creative, 2005.  pp. 179-194.  (September 2005) 
ISBN 1-59092-185-2

3. "Boxes" in CrossTIME Anthology Vol. V.  
Santa Fe NM: CrossTIME, 2006.  pp. 132-147.  (September 2006)  
ISBN-13 978-1-890109-08-0

4. "Dead Forever" at Ralan's Web Spectravaganza; 2nd Prize 
2006 Grabber Contest.  Illustration by Teresa Tunaley.  (October 2006)
http://www.spectravaganza.com/2-win-06.html


In no particular order, at the close of 2007 I had stories out at:

-- Writers of the Future
-- F&SF
-- Analog
-- Asimov's
-- Interzone (U.K.)
-- Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show
-- Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
-- Southern Fried Weirdness Online
-- Space and Time Magazine

Since this is being published in January, I'll spare us all the mock suspense and come right out and say that on 5 January 2008 I heard from Writers of the Future that one of my two 2007 Finalists, "A Man in the Moon", was selected to be included in the next WOTF anthology. This is huge. That sale, however, won't show up until the First Quarter 2008 statistics. (grin) And the check won't come til late in the summer. (double-entry-grin)

Despite only receiving one check for the entire year (thank you, Nikki!), this has been a very good year. For a while I thought I wasn't making much progress, but I've been working on quite a number of new stories which will soon be heading out into the wild and I've managed to go through my 50-story Invenstory and send many of them on to a lot of markets. Keep the pump primed, so to speak. Making my writing "more better".

I can only imagine that 2008 is going to be a very good an even better year.

Dr. Phil

Comments

[soniahelbig.livejournal.com]

You keep priming that pump, and there aint no better music to do it to!

[kizmet-42.livejournal.com]

How do you keep track of all of this?

I'm organizationally-challenged, so if you have a recommendation, I'll appreciate it greatly.

Cassie

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

Well, first of all I am a physicist, so I like keeping lists and records. Way over the top/overkill, but having statistics and things is nice. Since stories evolve over time, I assign each story a version number so I can keep track of who has gotten what version/length of a story.

I could use a big spreadsheet or even an Access database, but I just use a big Word file. Each entry gets a checklist for that market -- word count, format, postage, when sent, replies, etc. For example, my WOTF story listing starts out like this:

• 143 • Writers of the Future Quarterly Submissions 1 April - 30 June 2007 THIRD QUARTER XXIVth Contest
 	A Man in the Moon Version 1.60.14 / 14,151 words [Word 95]
	Finalist In Progress (05 September 2007 • Phone Call)  •  One of EIGHT Finalists, still judging
	Finalist no 161 (40-115-6) (06 November 2007 • Web) •  No Prize, but get published?
	Accepted no 161 (40-115-6) (05 January 2008 • Phone) • Will Be Published In 24th Anthology
	LAST UPDATE: 01-05-2008 Sa		SUBMITTED: 06-29-2007 Fr
	[xx] Story LOCKED • HP LaserJet 4ML (home) MAN-160-14.dox.doc
	[xx] Deadline Involved – Fiftieth Contest Entry
	[xx] SFWA Qualified Market
	[xx] No entry fee
	[xx] Prose up to 17,000 words

143rd story sent out, 161st result recorded, with 40 wins, 115 rejections and 6 no calls at that point.

I then have a bunch of tables which track story size, estimated due dates for returns, days out for each submission and averages for each market, any way you might find it interesting to look at your data, plus a date log for each submission/result. Then I have a list of each story sent to each market -- so I know where each story can go -- and a list of where each story has gone, so I know where it can go next.

Really, it's whatever you deem useful. You could also go with a card file, with a card for each story and each market.

Dr. Phil