WOTF Results

I just got a letter in the mail today telling me that my "Ra-Gho-Zu" short SF fiction story placed as a quarter-finalist in the 1st qtr of the WOTF 2008 contest. My name will be posted in the WOTF blog sooner or later.

They're calling quarter-finalists "Honorable Mentions" now. It's still the same thing. We don't get anything except a credit on a short story/novel cover letter to an editor at the most.

Quarter-finalist in 2006 and a quarter-finalist in 2008 again... Unlike the first time, I also get a certificate (and a footnote mention in the WOTF blog).

I could keep on submitting to WOTF except I have to move beyond short stories and onto novels I need to write. Short story publications don't earn fiction writers very much. Reputations are made with novels, which pay better (even though few novelists earn enough to go without a day job). I will go to plan B now: shopping my story with likely short fiction markets (one at a time since simultaneous subs are frowned on).

Two candidates that stand out to me are Jim Baen's Universe and Analog Science Fiction & Fact.

On with the grind.