Because sometimes that's what it takes.

The SF/F/H publishing industry operates in a way as anachronistic as many of the stories it generates. A few key publishing houses control the majority of the novel market, and a handful of editors manage the short-fiction markets. These key people filter the hundreds-of-thousands of manuscripts submitted for publication each year and pull out a statistically microscopic few to send to the press. Their task is enormous.

They make choices about what to print in the old-fashioned, time-honored ways--they read stories from people they know first and stand by authors with a proven track record of sales. They depend upon the shroud of complexity that the submission process is hidden in to serve as a de-facto barrier to the uninitiated and weed out uninformed authors. They do these things because they have to--not because they dislike new authors. But the fact remains that most stories are rejected for reasons other than the quality of the writing or the tale they contain.

So how do you increase your odds of getting selected?

Shameless Self Promotion.

Don't get me wrong--there is no substitute for a great story and the perfect words to tell it with. No amount of self promotion will overcome a bad story (with a few notable exceptions...;) but if the editors can't put a face with the name on the cover letter then your great story will probably go unprinted.

So check out our authors, and our resources, and see if there is something we can do to help you even the odds. We think there is a better way for the system to work. Until we figure it out, we'll keep trying to improve our chances in the old one...8)