Asimov's losing manuscripts?

Sorry if this turned out a little rant-ish...

I met someone recently who had submitted to Asimov's, and we
commiserated a little. He said they lost a manuscript of his,
and we both whined about how long their response times can get.
Well, I'm now the proud record holder on Submitting to the Black
Hole for longest response time from Asimov's:

http://www.critique.org/critters/cgi-bin/rawbymarket.cgi?market=Magazine%3a%20Asimov%27s%20Science%20Fiction

Mine's the data-point with the 02/21/07 submission date, and I
recorded it as a "still waiting." I can imagine that it will eventually
come back, but maybe it's been lost. Any suggestions on how to handle
this? Their online guidelines say:

Our response time runs about five weeks. If you have not heard from us
within three months from the day you mailed your ms., you can assume
it was lost in the mail, and are welcome to resubmit it to us. We do
NOT keep a record of submissions, but if you would like to know if we
received your story or poem, include a self-addressed stamped
postcard, which we will return to you on the day it arrives in the
office.

The part about "Our response time runs about five weeks" is obviously
pretty silly, since Submitting to the Black Hole reports an *average*
time of 13 weeks. It's also kind of goofy for them to state that your
ms must have been "lost in the mail" if it takes more than 3 months,
since their average response time is longer than 3 months. The
guidelines make it clear that they don't want you to query.

With this particular story, I decided not to send it to them again,
since I can't see letting a story sit at one magazine for nine months.
I just sent it out to another magazine, on the theory that it's not
a simultaneous submission, since Asimov's guidelines say to assume it's
been lost. I suppose in the future I could send a postcard with each
submission to Asimov's as they suggest, but I don't see what good that
would do. I don't need any extra convincing that the USPS actually
delivered it, and since their guidelines make it clear that
they don't want queries, and don't keep records of submissions, it's
not as though it's going to help me to state in a query letter that
I have the postcard. I could send them a CYA letter saying that I'm
withdrawing the submission, but that would seem like a pretty
meaningless gesture, since they say they don't keep a record of
submissions.

It's getting to the point where I feel like sending my stories to
Asimov's is hurting my chances of getting published rather than helping
them. It seems to be equivalent to letting the ms sit in a desk drawer
for 6 months, whereas everyone tells you that the key to breaking in
is to submit everything you write, and turn it around on a dime when
it comes back. I would also like the stories that I'm sending out at
any given time to be as recent as possible, on the theory that I'm
improving as a writer, so old stories aren't likely to represent my best
work. And since I'm producing roughly six stories in six months,
it's not logically possible for me to send every story to Asimov's.
I read somewhere that Asimov's only publishes about 4 stories a year
by new writers, so realistically, of the six pro SF markets (Asimov's,
F&SF, Analog, JBU, Strange Horizons, Card's), the chances seem
infinitesimally small that Asimov's would be the one where I'd
break in. The other five are all *much* friendlier to new authors.

One imponderable here is that it seems to me that the world of SF
short fiction has reached a cusp. The circulations of Asimov's,
F&SF, and Analog have shrunk to the point where you have to wonder
how relevant they are, and my personal opinion is that when I read
those magazines, there's a palpable dreary sameness to them; if
innovative, fresh SF shorts are getting published, it seems to be mostly
in Strange Horizons, or some of the better semi-pro zines, like
Polyphony. In terms of economics, I'm persuaded by Mike Resnick's
argument that the print magazines have an unsustainable business
model. (Unfortunately the only place I can find where he sets out
this argument is at
http://baens-universe.com/articles/april2007edpage , where, if
you're not a JBU subscriber, you can only read the first half.)

Okay, thanks for bearing with me through this rant. Advice,
commiseration, or heated disagreement would all be welcome :-)


.

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