Since its inception, Tor.com has prided itself on the strength of its original short fiction. For a long time our unsolicited submissions formed the backbone of our catalog. We’ve found some of our favorite, most innovative, and most surprising stories through slush. However, in recent years we’ve found that more and more of our stories have been coming to us from different sources. As more of our stories are being brought in by consulting editors, fewer slots on our schedule can be filled by submitted stories. As such it’s time for a change.
On January 7th Tor.com will close its short fiction submissions system. Our dedicated editors and readers will read through and respond to everything that is submitted up to that point, but we do not plan to reopen in the foreseeable future. We are thankful to the authors who submitted stories to us, and to the readers who read those stories, always looking for the next great undiscovered work.
Too bad.
Capitalism always wins in the end.
Man, that’s too bad. It’d be nice if sometime in the future you guys had limited-time sub periods. We’ve had so many venues for new authors close lately (Subterranean, Crossed Genres).
I’m sorry to see this change; I’ve always admired tor.com’s willingness to accept unsolicited submissions. On the bright side, this post finally convinced me to submit a short story! Whether it will get accepted or not is beyond me, but the worst the editors can do is say no.
How exactly does the “consulting editor” system work? That is to say – if I’ve written a piece of short fiction that I think could be a good fit for Tor.com, who do I talk to?
Sad news :(
If, in an earlier submission response, the editors asked to see more of one’s short story work, does that still stand after 7 January 2016?
This is really bad news. Can anyone tell me what high quality platforms are left for self published short speculative fiction? also I’m very curious as to the ‘other sources’ mentioned. Feels like a channel is being closed for pro-am content. Makes me really sad.
Makes me wonder where the consulting editors are getting their stories from. There have to be unsolicited stories somewhere in the chain or eventually the new blood is all going to dry up…
That’s a shame, I loved coming here just to read unexpected gems from undiscovered talent. Without that…there’s not much else to draw me in.
At least I have one story in the system right now. Maybe this time it’s the right one!
This is the darkest of timelines. The darkest!
Hi,
Thanks a lot for the heads-up! Just wondering, what time exactly will you close the system on January 7th? It would just be good to know when we should ready submissions by. :)
Does this mean it will be closed during January 7th (after midnight following Jan 6), or from January 7th and onward?
Hi!
Does this decision affects your multiple-submission policy? If someone has submitted a story sometime ago and has received no answer yet, they should normally wait for such answer before submitting a new story. But if the answer doesn’t come until January 7th, there will be no opportunity to send the second submission…
Hello everyone. I’ll try to answer your questions as best I can.
For those asking about how we’ll be finding stories now (@7, @11, @12), our primary consulting editors are Ann VanderMeer and Ellen Datlow. Both Ellen and Ann have long and storied careers as editors and anthologists, and have been discovering and nurturing new talent for many years. They’ve provided the plurality of our short fiction for the last few years, including a large chunk of the new and debut authors we’ve been proud to showcase, such as Kai Ashante Wilson, Kelly Robson, Priya Sharma, and Veronica Schanoes, despite not being active in our unsolicited submissions system.
For those seeking specificity on when we’ll close: On January 6th, Tor.com will be open. On January 7th, Tor.com will be closed. We’ll aim to close down the system after midnight following January 6th.
@20, This does not affect our multiple-submission policy.
So, I made a resolution…
That this was the year I was going to get some fiction published. And, while I hadn’t particularly thought about it before, the announcement on the Tor Books website that they were going to stop taking unsolicited short story submissions on Jan. 7th acted as a kind of spur. I thought, “well, might as well get used to being rejected – why not start at the top?”
So, the good news…I managed to generate 12,636 words (which I know cause I had to transer my document into Word to get a word count) in a little less than a week. My new piece, “The Female of the Species.’ Which I even liked! I even managed to finish it before the deadline! Wow, SUBMIT, yeah!
Which, thanks to the miracle of modern technology – or, rather, my faulty grasp thereof – I managed to submit the WRONG VERSION. The Wrong Draft. Not complete.
Horror! Tried to resubmit the corrected version. no dice.
Head, meet desk. Pound until tender.
Hello everyone.
Due to technical complications, Tor.com will be staying open an extra day. We will now close at the end of January 7th, around midnight PST, rather than at the beginning.
@23
Thanks for the update! If we submitted last night, but didn’t receive a submission status link, should we resubmit our story today?
Never mind! Found the e-mail in my spam folder! :-/
Hello Tor editors, I was just wondering what it means if my submission status for a story submitted in June of 2015 still says “In Progress”? I know the submissions were kept open till midnight January 8th but my story status has not received any change. Can we expect a form rejection via email or some indication of the status, so that I can take the story elsewhere? Thank you very much!
-Aniket Sanyal
Hello, all–anyone with questions about outstanding submissions (or those who would like to withdraw their submission) should email the submissions(at)tor.com address directly. Thank you.