· 

Shaky Math

Earth’s population: 7.6 billion.

Copies sold worldwide of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone: 120 million.

If a sale is a success, Rowling’s success rate with humanity: 1.5%.

(Think of it: 98.5% of humanity has not bought her first book.)

A starry-eyed dream: to be 1/100th as successful as Rowling.

In that case, ideal success rate with humanity: 0.015%.

Number of submissions needed, at that rate, to get one acceptance: around 67.

When a single story of mine has been rejected by 67 different magazines or markets, then I’m allowed to get bummed. Not till then.