One of the special rewards of my job has been a growing appreciation for the creative imagination of Asimov’s readers. For me, the most obvious result of this energy is that you are responsible for a large percentage of manuscripts that make their way to our office. I think that at least 10 percent of Asimov’s readers are currently trying their hands at writing. I suspect that over the years Asimov’s editors have seen stories at one time or another from at least 20 to 30 percent of you—perhaps even more. I hope those of you who would rather spend more of your free time quilting, duck hunting, or reading short stories will bear with me as I use this editorial to talk about how important this output of unsolicited manuscripts is to the magazine. After all, when they become the content of Asimov’s, some percentage of these stories will eventually be shared with all of you.
New writers are the lifeblood of the magazine. Rarely does an issue go by that doesn’t include at least one person’s first sale to Asimov’s. There are cases (such as Edward M. Lerner, a long-standing Analog author, whose first story for us appeared in our last issue), where I’m already familiar with the work of the author from his or her previous sales to other SF outlets. Others (such as Merrie Haskell and Nick Wolven, whose stories are appearing in our next issue) will be authors whose work is completely unknown to me. In each instance, though, these stories caught my attention and held it all the way through. They were tales that I enjoyed and believed you would find rewarding as well.
It might seem as though it could be easy to become complacent about buying stories for Asimov’s and rely solely on the work of the established professional. The work of authors like Robert Reed, Nancy Kress, Michael Swanwick, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and others seem to appear so regularly in our pages that readers and struggling new authors can be forgiven if they think of them as Asimov’s reliable stable. I, on the other hand, could not be forgiven for entertaining those same thoughts. I know that long-standing authors depart unexpectedly to write novels. If the novel doesn’t divert them, they may find their time consumed by child-rearing responsibilities and by the hours needed for career building in occupations unrelated to fiction writing. In addition, there is the hard truth that not every story written by the well-known author is going to appeal to me or be right for Asimov’s.
Despite my claims to open mindedness, however, I know that the attempt to break into the field or into a particular market is a frustrating one for most new writers. While I can only publish seventy to eighty tales a year, I receive thousands of submissions during the same time period. It’s unlikely that more than a quarter of the stories that I do publish will be from new authors. This past fall at the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, New York, I had a long talk with Leslie J. Howle, the director and co-administrator of Clarion West Writers Workshop. She mentioned that some Clarion graduates felt discouraged by the odds of a new writer selling a story to a professional market.
Well, the odds can be very discouraging, but writing a story and sending it in to a science fiction magazine is not the same thing as buying a lottery ticket. In the latter instance there is a certain probability that you will win the jackpot. Depending on how many people enter a lottery, these odds may range from tiny to miniscule, but statistically, the odds will be the same for every ticket purchased. This is clearly not the case for the writer. Some authors may sell to me on their first attempts. At the other extreme, I met an author at World Fantasy who had been submitting stories to Asimov’s for about twenty-five years before finally selling one to us a couple of years ago. For myriad reasons, some authors will never tell a story that appeals to me, while others will do so over and over again.
Still, as I said earlier, I don’t rely on my familiarity with an author when I make choices for the magazine. I take the search for new stories very seriously, and I look over every submission that comes into the office. Whether you’ve had any sort of professional experience or not, I enjoy reading your cover letters. I like learning about who you are, the research you’ve put into the story, or your connection to the magazine. Some of my colleagues advise against listing semi-professional sales, but I am not adverse to reading about your hard-earned writing credits. There are many discerning professional and semi-professional editors working in science fiction and its related fields. Three sales to Bloody Fang Magazine may not tell me that you know how to write an SF story, but it often does indicate that you know how to construct a tale. Ultimately, though, the cover letter isn’t essential because the story will have to sell itself. Just last week, I purchased a story sans cover letter from an author I’d never heard of.
It may sound like a cliché, but it’s still true that every professional author had to start somewhere. Not long ago, Jack Skillingstead was completely unknown to our readers. I had never heard of either Ian Creasey or Ted Kosmatka when I purchased their first stories for Asimov’s. Since then, I’ve bought enough material for each of them to qualify for a SFWA membership on the strength of their Asimov’s sales alone.
I’m delighted and heartened that we consistently find promising new writers, but I have no intention of taking that good luck for granted. I’ll continue to enjoy getting to know you and appreciating the time and effort that you put into each story at the same time as I look hungrily over your tales for the next exciting Asimov’s debut.
