I always find it ironic that professional editing—an industry solely devoted to words and language—has so much confusing niche terminology. I say this as someone who edits professionally, both as a freelancer and through Scribble House. One person’s content editing might be another’s structural edits, and whether these are interchangeable or mean slightly different things usually depends on who you’re asking, too.

Part of the problem is that these terms aren’t standardized, and slightly different ones are often used depending on the context. What a fiction editor calls “line editing”, the editor of online news articles might call “copy editing”, and there’s similar overlap between terms like content editing, structural editing, and developmental editing.

I’ve completed another novel draft, which means I’m at that delightfully terrifying stage again: pitch time. A process I’ve yet to unlock the secrets of; the last novel I shopped around has yet to find a home. Granted, the manuscript itself could be to blame—it’s a beast of a novel, around 173,000 words, which is a hard sell even in hard sci-fi land—but I suspect there are also still plenty of things I could improve about my query packet and process.

One strategy I haven’t yet attempted is doing live pitches. I go to a lot of conferences where this is an option but have always talked myself out of signing up. I’m enough of an introvert that just thinking about selling my project face-to-face in real-time makes me want to find some dark corner to hide in. The thing is, I don’t want to let myself miss opportunities just because something makes me uncomfortable. So I’ve resolved to start taking my shot with live pitches. 

Like the good Virgo I am, this means I’ve also been doing a lot of research into just what’s involved in live pitches and how to get the most out of them. I don’t have any first-hand advice to offer on the subject yet, but I have found some very helpful (and reassuring) advice from people who are actually experts in this whole thing. I figured I’d share them with folks here in case anyone else out there is in need of some live pitching pointers.

I’ve been publishing short stories for long enough that some of my early publications now no longer exist. That’s especially annoying when it’s an online journal. If it was a print publisher, or even an ebook, that’s still an extant artifact you can show to your friends, or readers could theoretically stumble across in some other way. Once an online journal goes dead, though, they often disappear from the web completely, and any stories or poems they published along with them.

Now, some of these early stories, I’m not too mad that they’re not available anymore because, in hindsight, they were…rough around the edges, I’ll say. But some of them are stories I still believe in and would love to keep sharing with readers—and not just the ones who happen to stumble across my website or blog.

Rather than get depressed over these publications disappearing, I’ve decided to take this as an opportunity to find them a second home—one that’s even better than the first place I published the story. I knew when I started that this would be a challenge since the majority of journals and anthologies won’t consider previously published work. That said, I’ve been surprised by just how many high-quality markets do consider reprints, now that this is something I’m paying attention to.

Here are a few of the places I’ve found that can make a great home for previously published stories (and poems or essays too, in most cases, although I was focusing on them from a fiction standpoint). It’s certainly far from a comprehensive list, but can at least give you a place to start if you’re looking for reprint markets.

I just wrapped up my first experience at the In Your Write Mind conference hosted by Seton Hill University’s popular fiction program—quite literally, in fact; I’m on the train back to Pittsburgh as I write this.

You might think, given how many writing conferences and such I go to in a typical year, that the experience would be predictable by this point, but the truth is that past experience has just taught me not to assume anything. Conferences and conventions vary wildly in just about every respect. I’ve been to some that last a single day and others that last 4-5, conventions with 10,000+ attendees and others with less than a hundred. Most have book fairs or exhibit halls, but not all; some are mostly panels, some mostly workshops, some mostly readings, some a mix of all three—and the value I’ve gotten from going to those activities has been just as wide-ranging.

I’m going to take a second for a minor brag first, but I promise it’s relevant: I’ve had a pretty solid first half of 2024 when it comes to submissions. So far this year, I’ve gotten 53 responses from publishers: 50 rejections and 3 acceptances, for an acceptance percentage of 5.7%—about a full percent higher than my typical average. Adding in the 4 article pitches I’ve had accepted and the fact that Cryptid Bits came out in February, and I think it’s safe to say 2024 is shaping up to be my best year by far as a writer.

Even aside from the publications, though, one of the main things that has me feeling like I’m building momentum is the fact that 13 of those rejections (roughly a quarter of them) weren’t just the standard form letter. This included a short-list from Andromeda Spaceways, a long-list from The Masters Review, and a personal from Missouri Review, all places it feels good to hear a nice no from.

Being a writer—or at least, being one who actively tries to get work published—means hearing “no” a lot. I’ve been at this for a while and have developed a fairly thick skin, but even so it can be rough sometimes when the rejections stack up. I’ve had spans where I’ve gotten a dozen or more form rejections in a row, sometimes multiple on the same day, and it can be hard to muster the motivation to send work out again when I’m in one of those stretches—the doubt and imposter syndrome start to creep in, and this is when I’m most likely to self-reject myself out of opportunities, or to question why I’m even doing this in the first place.

Conventional wisdom says to read a journal’s back issues before you send them work so you can get a sense of what they publish and whether your stuff’s a good fit. The same advice is often given to folks shopping around a chapbook or book-length manuscript: read what the press has done before. It’s good advice—when it’s possible. That’s easy for free online journals, for instance, and even many print journals, small presses, or paywalled online publications have free samples available.

In other cases, though, the only way to read past issues is to buy them. While I’m in favor of supporting small publishers in theory, my budget and bookshelf space also aren’t infinite. Granted, there are other ways around this conundrum. You could only submit to places that do have work available on line, for instance, or you could just say fuck it, send your stuff anyway, and hope for the best. There are other ways to get a sense for a journal’s tastes too, though, ones that don’t involve spending any money. Here are some things I’ll often do when I want to scope out a journal, anthology, or press to decide whether it could be a good home for my work.

I love writing conferences—which might be a bit surprising, considering I’m generally an introvert who, most days, will do just about anything in my power to avoid being forced to socialize. That doesn’t mean I don’t like people, though. I just like being able to engage with them on my own terms, and to retreat into my little corner of solitude when my people-ing battery starts running low.

Which is actually why I love conventions, conferences, book fests, and the like. Panels and readings give you a place to listen to other folks talk about interesting things without feeling pressure to engage. When you’re talking one-on-one, there’s less need for empty small talk—you can jump right into subjects like writing, books, or other things you actually want to talk about. For me, at least, just having those easy potential conversation starters lowers my anxiety level about entering a room full of strangers.