I saw somewhere that The New Yorker gets half a million unsolicited submissions per year. Let that sink in for a second.

 Half a million.

That’s a serious slush pile.

But I did notice that famous people are constantly getting published in the magazine.  This makes sense for The New Yorker. No matter how good the piece is, why take a risk on an unknown when you can tap celebrities whose names will draw in readership.  We are all beholden to someone or something, publications need content, but they need readership first and foremost.  And this strategy worked on me. I ordered some old issues of the magazine on Ebay and saw that Bob Odenkirk had a piece under their Shouts and Murmers section. Bob is a very funny actor and comedian. I loved him in Better Call Saul.  His piece in The New Yorker, entitled A Biblical Rough Draft, was just OK though. 

Don’t get me wrong, there were some incredibly funny phrases, like one part where he refers to biblical storytellers as those who “tromped from village in floppy sandals, swatting at flies, sipping beads of dew from the undersides of donkeys, and fighting dogs for scraps of meat.” That donkey thing—that’s my kind of humor. But overall, the piece was not nearly as funny as I would have expected. 

I can’t help but think that Bob’s fame played a significant role in him landing that piece. If a complete unknown (like Yours Truly) had written the exact same words, I am sure it would have been rapidly rejected.  We could rebel and shout “The world isn’t fair!” and “They should evaluate the story on its own merits, no matter who wrote it!”  And while I do agree with the idealism of the latter, my belief is that the world is fair. Bob worked hard to obtain fame. Having an inside track to publication is one of the fruits of his labor.  And can you blame the magazine for using the tactic of publishing the work of celebrities? Bob is a very safe bet. Prestigious literary publications, places like The New Yorker, The Atlantic, or The Onion have reputations that could be damaged if they publish writing from an unknown author and it turns out that person is a white supremacist, or a cannibal, or worse yet, a cannibal white supremacist racially-biased to eating only Caucasians.

Okay, so maybe “just get famous” isn’t practical advice. To be honest, if I had this completely figured out, you would have already heard of me before stumbling across this post.

So, what am I doing to stand out?

My strategy is to go wide and deep — but with quality! I am writing every day to generate content, working hard to refine it so that it stands out when it is eventually considered, and submitting all the time. Right now, I have ten stories out for consideration. I figure if my name starts to look familiar to the editors, they will know I am taking my writing seriously.

As a tactic I mentioned in a previous post, I am also targeting a specific market: Points In Case. I am tailoring my writing to fit that market. It will be interesting to see whether this strategy improves my acceptance rate.

I will keep you posted as to how well this works — at least until I get famous and don’t have to worry about silly things like having a “strategy” anymore.

Let me know in the comments below whether you have a strategy for standing out in today’s sea of competition. I am interested to hear your thoughts!

-James