Slowly but Surely
Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine is an Australian semi-pro market with a very good reputation. I’ve been trying to break into that one for a while. Usually their turnaround on stories is very fast, their Duotrope reported median response time is 9 days. They’ve had one of my stories for something like 33.
Their slush process is fairly transparent with a listing of ms numbers in each of their rounds. My story finally came out of the first round, the first-read level. It’s probably a fluke of luck that left my story in round one limbo so long. I am, happily, on now to round two. I’ve never made it past round two. Maybe this time.
Round two is the editor scoring round. Round three is full of stories they would like to publish, a pool of “good enough” stories from which they fill their magazines. Still, not all those stories are purchased. Finding my way into that pool would be a good next step for me. I wait to find out. Hopefully that won’t take another month. Even if it does, a two-month period isn’t so long in this business. I’ve been waiting on Weird Tales longer than that.
Scott W. Baker: Chaos out of Chaos 
Hey, at least you’re still in the running! 🙂
Congrats on the progress so far! Coincidentally, I’ve also got a story in the running there, this one in the 3rd round so I’m biting my fingernails waiting to hear the final news one way or the other. This one was surprisingly fast through the first rounds, though I doubt that means anything. 2 days in round 1, 2 additional days in round 2. Their guidelines page says that if the story spends more than 3 months in round 3 then it is implicitly rejected, and that date comes around on about April 6th. I’m approaching Duotrope’s average acceptance time of 67 days (though I’m sure there are plenty that are both higher and lower than that).