Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Hi Don, My experience with Chicken Soup has been pretty good, but you are correct that it does take patience. I started with them because I had a few stories I thought fit what they were looking for, and, as a beginner, I thought-- I had nothing to lose. That beginner's luck served me well as my first two pieces were accepted (I thought, hey, this writing thing's not so tough, lol). If I would have known what I was up against-- that they receive thousands of submissions for each book, and that chosen submissions are put through many readings by many people before they are chosen (I discovered on some free conference call with Jack Canfield), I may not have tried! Besides the most recent acceptance, the turnaround has been so: 2 months until Final Word of approval (you get notice that you are being considered, then a finalist, and THEN approval. I had one that made it to finalist and then was not chosen), and then 3-4 months until publication, payment and your 10 copies are sent to you. The Soup that is due out 4/20 (Thanks, Dad) I had given up on. I sent my submission in June and didn't hear from them until December. I thought I wasn't chosen at all, because you do not get a rejection letter if they Don't use your essay. The good things-- you retain all rights, so you can resell the work. It looks like they accept previously published work as well, as long as you let them know and you own the rights, of course. $200 and 10 books that you can sell to your friends, family, at your public speaking gigs (just not online) Most everybody has heard of Chicken Soup for the Soul, so the recognition is nice The not so good-- the competition the wait Well, Don, I think I may clean this email up in a few weeks and use it as a blog post, so thanks for the inspiration! I will follow this with the pdf of last months Scoop (the first few pages have dealines that have passed, so I didn't send those). I hope to get my html-savvy husband to help me so I can send a link to those, like you, who get that run-on sentence nonsense. Tina [ www.excuseeditor.com ]

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