I just wish they'd let me submit a story directly. I understand why they don't, but it's frustrating. I've been trying to get published for years, and have gotten very close more than once.
From the time I started submitting my work to the time I sold my first story was five and a half years.
I even had a short story published in an online mag that no longer exists.
If you got paid for it, then it counts as a professional sale, even if it didn't stay in print long. I've had a story published in an online magazine that ceased to exist less than a year later -- "The Weight of Silence" in
Alternative Coordinates back in 2010. I've been trying for years to find a way to get it back into print.
Like I said earlier, someone once said something that makes me think they were under the impression that
Trek fanfic writers are sometimes recruited. Is there any truth to that whatsoever,
@Christopher ?
I don't think there's any specific policy to recruit them as a class, but there have been one or two individual instances where someone who started out in fanfic ended up getting a professional gig. I think maybe Uma McCormack might've been one?
I have had agents/publishers send me generic rejection form letters, but a few have sent me personalized emails where it's clear they read my submission because they refer to certain lines/scenes. In each case I'm told by them that they genuinely think the story is good, that they're confident it will get sold, just their own publishing house isn't looking for this sort of story at present.
That's actually a very good sign. If they're interested enough to invest the time in writing a personal rejection letter and offering specific critiques, that means they think you have potential and are hoping to help you hone your craft. Stanley Schmidt's rejection letters over the years I spent trying to get into
Analog were a valuable learning experience for me, and he basically helped cultivate my talent until I got good enough to sell to him. So if those personal letters are offering specific advice,
follow it!
I say all that to say I feel pretty confident that I have the skill level necessary and that when you combine it with my love of Star Trek, I think I have a good deal to offer. Of course I know proof would be required, which is why I really want to submit a story of my own within the set guidelines. But I can't. It wouldn't be accepted.
Like I probably said, your best bet is to get an agent. Rejection is a fact of the business. There are a lot more contenders than there are openings. You may have the skill, but so do a lot of other people, so just having the skill doesn't equal being entitled to succeed. It's not easy to break in, especially in a tie-in line where there's only one publisher you can go to.
Besides, as I said, what you submit through the guidelines is just an audition. You're not selling them the specific story, you're selling them
yourself. They're looking for someone professional that they can work with, someone who's a good team player and understands the rules rather than insisting that
this time they should make an exception.
In short, there's no room in this business for a sense of entitlement. You take the opportunities you can get. There will inevitably be things you want to do but never get to do, because that's life. But if you do get the opportunity to do something, even if it's not the one thing you wanted most, then make the best of it. Let your career develop in whatever way it ends up going, because any success is good even if it's not the specific one you wished for. I mean, I always hoped I'd have a dozen or more novels in print by now, but I hoped that the majority of them would be original novels. Instead, they're nearly all tie-in novels. It's not quite the career I dreamed of, but it's still a good career.
at your username, 
