How hard are the word count guidelines?

[David Steffen]

How hard are the word count guidelines?  Specifically I have a story reprint that I'm considering submitting that is about 10,000 words, horror/fantasy.  Does it have a chance or is that just simply too long?

[Heradel]

For Podcastle it has a chance to make it as a Giant (10k+ word episode), not sure about Pseudopod.

[Ben Phillips]

The word count limit is never absolute, but if you read the tone of the wording in the various guidelines, you can see varying levels of aversion.

PodCastle's guidelines:  "We may run longer stories, but it will be a harder sell."

Pseudopod's guidelines:  "...we are quite hesitant to produce stories any longer than that. The longer the story is, the more brilliant it needs to be to sustain audience interest."

So, sight unseen, my instinct would be to send it to PodCastle first since they do routinely run longer stories, whereas Pseudopod rarely does, and I don't know if we've ever run one as long as 10,000 words.  Maybe "Flat Diane" and that's it.

[Anarkey]

So, sight unseen, my instinct would be to send it to PodCastle first since they do routinely run longer stories, whereas Pseudopod rarely does, and I don't know if we've ever run one as long as 10,000 words.  Maybe "Flat Diane" and that's it.

Which was brilliant, and one of the PP all time fav's, thus proving the point.  Chances are, Steffen's story is not "Flat Diane", because almost none of them are.

OTOH, I'll note that PC doesn't put out much that skews towards horror.

Generally speaking, unless the market craves length, length is just one more tick against the story in a pile of stories one is looking to discard from.  Were I you, I'd see whether it could be trimmed before sending it. 

Another tick against the story would be if it's not a reprint.  You don't say in your post whether you've already sold your story, but all three of the 'casts are reprint markets (PP is maybe more generous in taking original material than the other two).  Why not sell it elsewhere first? 

[David Steffen]

Thanks, Ben. 

Anarkey--Thanks the advice as well.  This particular story has already been printed elsewhere already so it has that going for it at least.

[Anarkey]

Thanks, Ben. 

Anarkey--Thanks the advice as well.  This particular story has already been printed elsewhere already so it has that going for it at least.

Excellent, that is a tick in favor. 

I'll also mention nothing stops you from sending to both (sequentially, of course).  It's not a united pool of slush and rejection from one doesn't mean rejection from all. 

[Ben Phillips]

After some discussion with my slush readers, I feel compelled to amend what I said.  Stories longer than 7500 words need not apply to Pseudopod (I'm actually amending the sub guidelines as well to reflect this), although there isn't any reason you can't trim one down to that length.  You're better off, in fact, trimming it to 6000 words or less.  We like fast-paced stories.  You can do this regardless of publishing history.  It's your story, and this is going to be an audio rendition of it.

The reason for the hard limit, for us, boils down to limitations of the slush readers' time.  I can't expect them to review all stories sent, of any arbitrary length -- we just don't have the resources for that.