Category: Escape Pod

Over the weekend, Escape Pod received one of the highest honors possible for a science fiction entity: someone named a species after us.

The newest member of the Escape Pod team, Zelomorpha effugia, is a Costa Rican parasitoid wasp. The taxonomic methods used to identify it (and the other newly-described species in this publication¹) are new and perhaps controversial. But I, for one, welcome our scientific controversy overlords.

This delights me beyond words. Ever since I was a child reading Far Side cartoons, the idea of having a species named after something I’ve done was a dream beyond imagining.

Good news for all you writers out there: starting immediately (last update February 5, 2019), Escape Pod is changing their rejection letters to a newer, more transparent pattern. Escape Pod rejectomancy is getting easier!

Escape Pod rejection letters will now be explicit and transparent about exactly where your story got in our editorial pipeline. From 2017-2019, the letters contained that information, but to interpret it you needed to read my website. No longer! That means you’re free to stop reading this post right now, its information is no longer necessary. But if you crave a deeper knowledge of rejectomantic arts, dive on in.

If the rejection letter provides no details about who enjoyed your story, that means your story was rejected after initial Associate Editor review. If your story passed any of the following milestones, the rejection letter will tell you whether:

1. An Associate Editor passed your story up to the Assistant Editor.
2. The Assistant Editor (me) held it for a second read.
3. The Assistant Editor passed it to Co-Editors for the final round of consideration.

Associate Editors read each story anonymized¹, but the Assistant Editor and Co-Editors can see the author’s name and cover letter.² This process gives each story an initial read where it must stand on its text alone, while still allowing the cover letter to play a role, especially if the author has experiences relevant to the story.

The new letters also provide approximate statistics about the stages of our pipeline (“about X% of stories reach this level”). We hope this context will be useful, especially for new authors.

Rejection “level” is not an indication of story quality. It only tells you what it says on the proverbial tin: whom in our staff thought it might be a good fit for Escape Pod. The visibility of an issue is not necessarily correlated with its magnitude.

The only exceptions to this formula are three rare cases, all of them self-explanatory. “Violated guidelines” (generally for stories that are too long or too short), “Revise & Resubmit,” and of course “Acceptance.”

Reprints and originals now receive the same rejection letters, but reprints are less likely to receive personal notes.

PERSONAL NOTES

When possible, we try to include personal comments in rejection letters, below the form text. Most personal notes are written by me based on Associate Editor input. In addition, sometimes the Associates write up the a note for me to paste in, and of course the Co-Editors write their own for the final round. The presence (or absence) of a personal note does not reflect how well we thought a story would fit at Escape Pod. Generally, six factors influence this choice:

1. Who on our staff read your story? (Are they someone more or less inclined to write personals?)
2. Did we think a comment would help this story or your future stories?
3. Was our reaction something we could meaningfully condense down to a sentence or two?
4. Was there something in your cover letter that affected our desire to provide feedback?
5. How hurried was I while sending out rejection letters?
6. Was the story a reprint? (Reprints almost never get personal notes, because the story has already achieved its final form.)

As you can see, many of these factors have nothing to do with your story. We offer feedback as often as manageable,³ but we’re not your critique group.

WHAT MAKES A STORY FIT (OR NOT)

If you receive a rejection letter of any kind, we didn’t think your story was a good fit for Escape Pod. This can happen for any combination of the following reasons:

1. The story didn’t suit our personal tastes.
2. We found problems with the story.
3. We’ve seen too many stories like this.
4. The prose would require too much editing.
5. The story felt more like fantasy or horror than science fiction.
6. The style wasn’t a good fit for audio.

This is fiction, not math: subjective taste is our only true yardstick. We encourage everyone to keep trying no matter what flavor of rejection they receive! Many of our authors received several rejections of various types before we bought one of their stories, and many of our staff still receive rejections from other Escape Artists podcasts.

NOTES AND EXCEPTIONS

We try to go through the main queue from oldest to newest, but there’s a lot of jitter. For example, if one of us downloads 10 stories to their Kindle, the next reader might come along ten minutes later and respond to the 11^th story.

The workflow can vary if I or one of the Co-Editors plucks a story from the queue. This skips a story over one or more of the early tiers. This is rare, is not usually faster than the usual pipeline, and doesn’t necessarily affect the ultimate odds of acceptance. You will probably never notice from the outside.

Special submission calls aren’t under my management. For example, Black Future Month followed a generally similar workflow, but only had three tiers, and used the same rejection letter for all three.

This is an explanation, not a contract. This process was different in the past, and will surely change again someday.

As of today, I’ve made a small change to how we at Escape Pod choose our rejection letters.

In short, rejection letter type now reflects where the story got in our editorial pipeline. The criteria for Tiers 1&2 have been updated, so that now:

• Tier 1: Rejected by Associate Editor (first reader)
• Tier 2: Rejected by Assistant Editor (me)
• Tier 3: Rejected during Assistant Editor Second Pass
• Tier 4: Rejected by Co-Editors

Note that, as a result, we will be sending more Tier 1’s than in the past. We have tweaked its text accordingly.

Now more than ever, tier is not an estimate of story quality. “Who detected that the story wouldn’t be a fit for Escape Pod” is not highly correlated with the (subjective) question of “how close the story came to fitting.”

If you miss having some subjective opinion in your rejection letter, fear not! We continue to provide personalized rejections whenever possible for original story submissions.

If you want to learn more, including how to identify which tier you received, check out my full Submissions and Rejetomany post.

NOTE: This post is now obsolete, due to a change in our rejection letter pattern on February 5, 2019. Go read the new rejectomancy post instead.

Gentle reader, I present to you: a behind-the-scenes look into the Escape Pod editorial process!¹

REJECTION LETTERS

The Escape Pod general submission queue has 8 kinds of response letters (4 rejection tiers, plus a Reprint letter and three special cases). The exact wording may vary over time, so here are the key phrases that identify each letter:

Tier 1: Associate Editors (slush readers) didn’t think it was a fit for Escape Pod.
Key phrase:
– “We appreciate your interest in our magazine and wish you the best in finding a home for your story.”

Tier 2: Associate Editors liked it, but the Assistant Editor (me) didn’t think it would fit.
Key phrases:
– “We enjoyed this story, but unfortunately, it’s not quite right for us.”
– “We wish you the best in finding this a good home and look forward to your next submission.”

Tier 3: The Assistant Editor thought it could fit, but it didn’t make the Final Round cutoff.
Key phrases:
– “We enjoyed reading it, and it was well-received among our staff. However, it’s not quite what we’re looking for right now, so we’ve decided to pass on this one.”
–”We wish you the best of luck in finding the right home for this one, and we look forward to reading more of your work in the future.”

Tier 4: Final Round from the Co-Editors.
Key phrases:
– “While we enjoyed reading it, it’s not quite what we’re looking for right now, so we have decided to pass on this one.”
– “That said, your story was very well-received and reached the final round of consideration.”
– Signed by the Co-Editors (instead of the usual Assistant Editor signature)

Reprints: Replaces Tiers 1-2 for reprint submissions.
Key phrase:
– “We enjoyed reading this reprint, but unfortunately, it’s not quite right for us.”

Ineligible: For stories that don’t meet critical parts of our guidelines, usually by being too long or too short. No matter how well the story might fit otherwise, we can’t publish it.
Key phrase:
–”Unfortunately, we cannot consider it because it does not meet our submission guidelines.”

Revise & Resubmit: Self-explanatory if you get one. Very rare; less frequent than acceptances.

Acceptance: Also self-explanatory. Huzzah! Go you!

The astute reader will notice I keep saying “a fit [for Escape Pod].” What does that mean?

WHAT MAKES A STORY FIT (OR NOT)

When we say a story doesn’t fit, it can be any combination of the following reasons:

1. The story didn’t suit our personal tastes.
2. We found problems with the story.
3. We’ve seen too many stories like this.
4. The prose would require too much editing.
5. The story felt more like fantasy or horror than science fiction.
6. The style wasn’t a good fit for audio.

This is fiction, not logic: subjective taste is our only true yardstick. We encourage everyone to keep trying no matter what flavor of rejection they receive! Many of our authors received several rejections of various types before we bought one of their stories, and many of our staff still receive rejections from other Escape Artists podcasts.

Rejection tier is not an estimate of quality. Instead, it tells you where your story got in our pipeline. If you want to understand exactly what that means, you’ll have to follow…

THE PATH OF A STORY

When you submit to Escape Pod, your story goes into a single big queue. From there, any reader can grab a story and read it. Our hard-working Associate Editors (slush readers) do most of the work at this level. They read each story anonymously, which means they don’t see the submitter’s name or cover letter.² They rate each story with a Yes, No, or Maybe, and leave some notes about how they reached their decision.

Soon thereafter, I view each story, along with its rating, notes, and cover letter.³ If the Associate Editor voted No, I send a Tier 1 (or Reprint) rejection. If they voted Yes or Maybe, I read the story. Depending on my opinion, I either send a Tier 2 (or Reprint) rejection, or put it in my Assistant Editor Pile.

We aim to get all stories to this point within 1 month of submission. Assuming we’re on schedule, if any story sticks around longer than a month, that’s probably a good sign.

I use the Assistant Editor Pile to regulate the flow up to the Co-Editors so they can safely drink from the firehose. They need to put a lot of attention and effort into each story, so I only want to send them a limited number per month. Every two weeks, I review the pile and choose my favorite few (usually ≈6). I pass those favorites up to the Co-Editors, and I send the author an email to let them know we’ve held their story for the Final Round. If I reject a story at this stage, it gets a Tier 3 letter.

After that, Final Round with Divya and Mur! If they reject a story, they’ll send a Tier 4 letter.

PERSONAL NOTES

Some rejection letters may include personal comments in addition to the form text. Most personal notes are written by me based on Associate Editor input. In addition, sometimes the Associates write up the a note for me to paste in, and of course the Co-Editors write their own for Tier 4. The presence (or absence) of a personal note does not reflect how well we thought a story would fit at Escape Pod. Generally, five factors influence this choice:

1. Who on our staff read your story? (Are they someone more or less inclined to write personals?)
2. Did we think a comment would help this story or your future stories?
3. Was our reaction something we could meaningfully condense down to a sentence or two?
4. Was there something in your cover letter that affected our desire to provide feedback?
5. How hurried was I while sending out rejection letters?

As you can see, many of these factors have nothing to do with your story. We offer feedback as often as manageable, but we’re not your critique group.

Reprints almost never get personal notes, because the story has already achieved its final form.

EXCEPTIONS

So many possible exceptions!

We try to go through the main queue from oldest to newest, but there’s a lot of jitter.  For example, if one of us downloads 10 stories to their Kindle, the next reader might come along ten minutes later and respond to the 11^th story.

The workflow can vary if I or one of the Co-Editors plucks a story from the queue. That can skip a story straight to the Final Round selection, though this may or may not be faster than the usual route.

If a reprint submission gets a personal note or a regular Tier 1/2 rejection (instead of a Reprint rejection), don’t read anything into it. I’m sufficiently overtrained on the original-story workflow that sometimes I accidentally follow it for a reprint. At Tier 3 I usually include personal notes even for reprints; I’ve developed the summary during my decision-making process, so to omit it would just be hiding information from the author.

Special submission calls aren’t under my management. Artemis Rising generally follows a similar workflow, but has only two editorial levels, and tries to send more personal responses.

This is an explanation, not a contract! This process was different in the past, and could change again someday.

SUBMITTABLE STATUS

If you check your story status in Submittable, you might (or might not) at some point spot it changing from “New” to “In-Progress.” Unfortunately, this tells you very little. All it means it that someone has done something with your story. Maybe it’s been read by an Associate Editor, or maybe its’ been downloaded to someone’s Kindle for later reading, or maybe the software has changed every story’s “assignment” status because we added or removed someone from our team.

Sometimes a status-change contains information about story progress, but sometimes it tells you nothing at all. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell which from the outside. Sorry!