How the submissions system works
After you submit your story, you will receive an automatic email response that will provide you with a link that enables you to monitor the current status of your story. If you do not receive this email, please contact us and let us know at submissions@baensuniverse.com.
This link is specific to you and cannot be read by anyone else except members of the JBU staff. If you bookmark the link, you will be able to monitor the status of your story any time you want. You will be given one of several depictions of your story's status, as follows:
- Received
- Accepted
- Rejected
- Rewrite requested
- Withdrawn
- Marked as duplicate
- Recommended
What each of them means is this:
- Received
- We've gotten the story, on the date listed. It's working its way through the system but no decision has been made yet. Within two weeks -- often less -- your story will get a new status. As follows:
- Accepted
- We will buy your story. You will get a separate email from the magazine's editor, Eric Flint. In fact, you should get Eric's email first. If you do not get that email from Eric, after seeing this status in your link, please send us a letter at submissions@baensuniverse.com notifying us of the problem. In the meantime, you can read the letter itself via a link that will be provided in the page.
- Rejected
- We will not buy your story. You will get a separate email first from either Eric or Paula Goodlett, the assistant editor. If you do not get that email from Eric or Paula, after seeing this status in your link, please send us a letter at submissions@baensuniverse.com notifying us of the problem. In the meantime, you can read the letter itself via a link that will be provided in the page.
- Rewrite requested
- We may buy your story, if you rewrite it the way we request. You will get a separate email first from either Eric or Paula, explaining what we want. If you do not get that email from Eric or Paula, after seeing this status in your link, please send us a letter at submissions@baensuniverse.com notifying us of the problem. In the meantime, you can read the letter itself via a link that will be provided in the page.
- Withdrawn
- You sent us a letter withdrawing the story from consideration.
- Marked as duplicate
- You submitted your story twice, either by accident or because you made a mistake in your first submission. We marked this submission as a duplicate; please use the status tracking link of your other submission.
- Recommended
- The editorial board has recommended your story to the editor, and we are waiting for his decision.
WARNING!
It is at the "Recommended" stage of the submissions process -- assuming it happens with your story -- that progress will usually slow down a lot. Typically, the editorial board rejects over 95% of the stories submitted, and that typically happens within two weeks. It's the small percentage of the stories that get recommended to the editor that often take months for you to get a response. That's because the editor, Eric Flint, primarily makes his living as a writer, not an editor -- which means that the time he has available to read stories and decide whether or not to buy them is subject to the ups and downs of his own writing schedule. As a rule, Eric reads in chunks at a time, in between novels. So, if you had the bad luck to get a story recommended when he was right in the middle of working under deadline, you'll just have to wait a while. Sorry, but that's the way it goes. On the bright side, while Eric rejects the majority of the stories recommended to him, the percentage of acceptance is much higher. Something like 33%, instead of 5%, and even many of the stories he won't buy, as is, he might buy with a rewrite.
For whatever it's worth, if you make it to "recommended status," you're in the top few percentile points of all stories submitted. Yes, we realize that makes the long wait for a final response even more aggravating. But there's no way around it. What we do to make the wait less annoying than it needs to be, is this:
Periodically, every few weeks -- sooner, if Eric hits a stretch where he can read a lot -- your link will have an updated progress report on where Eric is, in terms of his reading schedule. He reads stories in the order in which they were originally submitted. (Approximately, taking one month at a time.) The link for your recommended story will therefore have a line which reads: "Eric is currently reading from March submissions." (Or whatever month he's reading from.) Since you know what month your own story was submitted, that will give you a rough idea of how far back it is in the queue.
Please be patient. We know it's aggravating, but at least with this system you can keep track of where your story is, instead of being left completely in the dark.