Spellbound: Giants Submissions Analysis
We wrapped the reading period for the Giants issue of Spellbound last month, so you know that that means. That means it's time to break down submissions stats.
The first thing that struck me this time around was the drop in submissions. Maybe this is due to the narrower theme (giants as opposed to general creatures) but it was pretty striking. For the Dragons issue I got sixty-five submissions. For Creatures of the Deep, Dark Woods submissions totaled fifty-two. This issue only brought in thirty-nine.
However, the overall quality of the stories were much better than with the previous issues. I ended up narrowing down the final stories to ten and then had to cut four from those ten. I ended up playing around with the line-up, trying to strike a good balance that would allow me to accept as many stories as possible without going over my budget. (I cheated and accepted one story for the special issue of Spellbound.) While talking to Marcie, she seemed to have the same difficulty, more great poems than she had slots. This is a good thing. Even if it doesn't feel like it.
This issue brought more Non-Western European settings (7) and disabled characters (3). The disabilities were all physical and most of the settings were Asian countries or implied Asian by character names. There was also an increase in the number of stories that were either off-genre or off-theme.
And as with every issue I've read for since the restart there was the requisite mention of bunnies. I'm not quite certain what it is about middle grade fantasy that inspires the inclusion of bunnies (and it's always bunnies, never rabbits) but I've received enough stories from enough different authors that it seems to be an unconscious trope. Maybe we should have a magic bunny theme one day.
All in all, I'm pleased with how this issue shaped up. I'd rather have to make difficult decisions and reject stories that are great because I don't have the room than have to scramble to fill "pages".
I've included the screenshot of the spreadsheet below for those who are curious:
The first thing that struck me this time around was the drop in submissions. Maybe this is due to the narrower theme (giants as opposed to general creatures) but it was pretty striking. For the Dragons issue I got sixty-five submissions. For Creatures of the Deep, Dark Woods submissions totaled fifty-two. This issue only brought in thirty-nine.
However, the overall quality of the stories were much better than with the previous issues. I ended up narrowing down the final stories to ten and then had to cut four from those ten. I ended up playing around with the line-up, trying to strike a good balance that would allow me to accept as many stories as possible without going over my budget. (I cheated and accepted one story for the special issue of Spellbound.) While talking to Marcie, she seemed to have the same difficulty, more great poems than she had slots. This is a good thing. Even if it doesn't feel like it.
This issue brought more Non-Western European settings (7) and disabled characters (3). The disabilities were all physical and most of the settings were Asian countries or implied Asian by character names. There was also an increase in the number of stories that were either off-genre or off-theme.
And as with every issue I've read for since the restart there was the requisite mention of bunnies. I'm not quite certain what it is about middle grade fantasy that inspires the inclusion of bunnies (and it's always bunnies, never rabbits) but I've received enough stories from enough different authors that it seems to be an unconscious trope. Maybe we should have a magic bunny theme one day.
All in all, I'm pleased with how this issue shaped up. I'd rather have to make difficult decisions and reject stories that are great because I don't have the room than have to scramble to fill "pages".
I've included the screenshot of the spreadsheet below for those who are curious: