Sometimes, someone will ask to reprint one of my stories. This is like finding money in my pocket. No new work, all the rewards!
I have had 10 stories reprinted a total of 22 times, all by request from the editor. Two pieces have been reprinted twice, “Knit Three, Save Four” and “Single Malt Spacecraft.” This includes translations and “best of” anthologies.
Add that, I now have 128 pieces in my submission tracker and 101 sold. It seems reasonable that I should try submitting a few reprints, myself. After all, I have all these stories that other editors have loved, and I know that Reprints are a Thing, and I’ve even had people ASK for them. What could go wrong?
This: Over the course of the past three years, I have submitted reprints to markets 21 times and received 21 form rejections.
Success rate: 0
And these were all markets that had bought things from me before! Places I was sure would like the particular story sent! Is it me? Am I not as good the second time around? Is my work “aging” quickly? Is it some weird thing like how people won’t want to date you if you ask?
But a friend on a forum pointed out, when you are submitting to a reprint market, you aren’t competing against the randomness of the slushpile; you are competing against stories that have won their place already somewhere else. Some of those stories may have awards! Only the really confident and successful are even submitting reprints. AND you are competing against the stories the editor read in other magazines and decided to ASK for.
You’re not going to convince someone who just saw a pretty dress and carried it up to the register to put it back and buy the dress you’re holding, instead. Humans don’t work like that.
This is all to say: Selling reprints is hard, and my little failed experiment in submitting them proves that. I think I’ll stop trying to sell them again, and wait to be asked. Increasing my yearly submission stats is not worth the hassle.
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