The Bleeding Room was just published in Glimmer Train in Winter 2015, but I originally wrote it more than 10 years ago in the fall of 2002. I submitted this story a few times nonsimultaneously in the early 2000s, stopped sending it out for 10 years, and then, on a whim, submitted it to one of Glimmer Train's Fiction Opens. It placed second, and was published with no revisions from the original finalized text. All of the journals I submitted it to are really well respected, but submitting to them one at a time was a silly thing to do. Then there was a 10 year period where I literally forgot about this story and I wasn't really writing much because Iwas busy with grad school. One day I thought to myself, you know, maybe I should get back into that writing thing. I never expected to place in the contest, but once I did, it gave me a confidence boost that launched an incredibly productive period of writing and submitting for me.
If you look at the below graph you see something moderately interesting. These are the acceptance rates (according to Duotrope) of all the journals I submitted the story to. These fluctuate in general right after something gets accepted and gets input into the system, and who knows what percent of submitting writers actually use Duotrope, but some data is better than none I guess. Bottom line of the below chart: this story was rejected by several magazines that are "easier" to get into than Glimmer Train is. You can never account for subjectivity. I still believe in tiered submissions, but ultimately, it's somewhat arbitrary which specific journal picks up a story.
Acceptance Rates at Submitted Journals (%)
Number of submissions: 9. Ratio of positive feedback to number of submissions: 22%. Time from completing story until publication: 13 years. This was my first acceptance.