Before I went travelling, I dispatched about thirty publication attempts. Three came back affirmative:

The first with (print - recieved copy) these guys
A second with (online- paid payment waived) these guys too.

A third with another</acronym> that's a bit dodgy, since I haven't heard back from them since they accepted my porn poem, but we'll see if the anthology comes through.

I also had two DDs on my other account, which either means I've improved since I used this one, or the admin just didn't like me in this incarnation, and placed second in the Mythic Prose Competition. I still haven't seen those lulu vouchers...

It's all a bit hit and miss, so I thought I'd log what's been going on here.

As of August 2008 onward-

Magazine rejections:
Short prose - 40.
Poetry - 50. (approx only, rounded up. Updated sporadically.)

Competition non-placing:
Short prose - 1.
Poetry - 1.

I thought it'd be fun to see how long it actually takes me to get anything like a novel in print. At the moment I'm scrabbling for publication credits in order to increase my likelyhood of getting financial support for my PhD, from the Arts Council or somesuch. At the moment it stands at some articles in a longago edition of the local newspaper and some information fact sheets that my previous place of work haven't bothered to upload for sale yet, so despite the research and effort that went into them, I'm not sure they count.

Upcoming Publications (hopefully... accepted by email, but not yet emerged)

01/10/08 - 3 Haiku, horror and Sf (print and online - paid)
07/10/08 - Fantasy Prose (print)
10/10/08 - Anarchist Poem. payment received for 'Shedding' 30/10/08 - Collection of poems in the same magazine.  (print and online - paid)
12/10/08 - Prediction, Sceptical Poem. (online - paid payment received)
17/10/08 - Three mixed poems and one short story: Amory.  (print and online - paid Payment Received)
31/10/08 -   (Issue 7) SF poem.  (online and print Copy received)
02/11/08 -   Earth Bubbles, Revisionist Macbeth.  (print)
09/11/08 -   Skinless, surrealist fiction (Online and Print - unpaid)
11/11/08 -   Strangedays - lesbian speculative fiction: my university dissertation. (Online - paid. Payment Received)
12/11/08 -   Two poems about the downsides of technology: Iridium Man and Muse Let's Sing of Rats. (Print)
17/11/08 - Bookshop Girl: A poem about a girl in a bookshop (online, paid Payment Received)
18/11/08 - SLAM: A poem detailing a revisionist Jack and Jill (print)
21/11/08 - Bunch of surrealist things (print)
6/12/08 - Visual Poem, Oroboros (Online, paid payment received)
7/12/08 - The Uncanny, a poem about miscategorisation (Print)
14/12/08 Tailings, a welsh faerie tale - in a christian horror magazine? (Online Paid)
09/01/09 Speaking to Socrates (a poem about speaking to Socrates (Print Paid)
11/01/09 Morgengeist (a poem about what happens when religion meets technology and brutality (Print, anthology)
15/1/09 (A short story about how 'forward' isn't always the best direction to progress in) (Print, and online)
26/1/09(Wishing for the Other World - a poem about what happens when you actually get there - Print)
22/1/09(The Unghost - a poem about a failed haunting- Print, Paid)
26/1/09Hard Frost - a story about a woman trapped in a post climate-change icefield. - Print (will need to order),Paid )


I also have a company called Forward Publishing, who I sent a very badly written poem about my cat to, chasing me up to include my poem in an anthology called Animal Antics. These people seem dodgy - in the same mode as poetry.com. They have offered me a 'discounted' price on the anthology and when I stopped corresponding, they sent me letters signed by an editor who has never heard of me - and probably hasn't heard of the several hundred or so suckers they are spamming on a regular basis.

While not as bad as Poetry.com (the anthology is merely pricey rather than extortionate, and is at least themed, so the poems have to be read in order to be accepted), I have a distinct feeling that a) these books aren't on general release and b) the average quality level is, if my poem is anything to go by, arse gravy. So I'd avoid them, if I were you.

Print: 16
Online (Paid but no print): 7

Payments received/waived: 6
Print copies received: 2

Running total of confirmed and pending publications: 23


As of October 2nd, 2008, I have over fifty submissions sent out to different magazines, of over a hundred different pieces of work (and a few simultanious submissions).

I kiss them goodbye with a tear in my eye. Good luck, good luck!