behind-the-scenes Production Meeting

We have really geared up for the awesome August 31, 2018 issue of Electric Spec. Most folks who made it into hold-for-voting should have received a final decision email by now. We're starting to edit stories and create the issue itself.

We recently had the Production Meeting. It's odd...often we notice an overall theme of submissions. This time, the tone of the stories was quite dark. We also had more than one story featuring spiders that made the finals. Interestingly, there was very little high fantasy. (Consider sending us some.) We discussed the finalist stories. One editor admitted that the amount of editing a story needed had an impact on whether he/she ranked it highly or not.

Overall, we were very impressed with the quality of the stories and were sad we couldn't publish all of the finalists. If your story was in hold-for-voting but ultimately not selected, do submit elsewhere. To assist you with this, consider the following websites with lists of markets:

• ralan.com
• Duotrope.com
• The Submission Grinder

Good Luck!

Next time I'll start bragging about upcoming stories!