I wrote a little about an online anthology that I did a while back called Bradley Sands is a Dick and linked to a download of it. I talk a little bit about why you shouldn't submit your writing to just anything.
I like this. I hate going through Duotrope and seeing terrible sites with poor design and shitty concepts have high reporting rates. The quality of markets won't get any better unless people stop submitting to terrible ones.
I think the concept of Bradley Sands is a Dick was hilarious, though, and you mentioned that Bust Down was closed at the time -- I really think that probably contributed to the high rate of submissions, because it was a great magazine and people probably really wanted to submit to it.
Makes sense. I really base my submissions on two things: 1.) The likelyhood of my work being a good fit (and accepted). and 2.) Does the site look like someplace I'd go to read fiction?
I want a sexy looking site to show my stories, not some place that looks outdated that I'd be embarassed to show my friends and family. I also take a look at the recent fiction that's been published. If I think the writing is not very good, regardless of what genre it is, then I will not submit.
Great points. I try to maintain a top-down approach to submitting (read: getting rejected): I submit first to the big-time markets--i.e. ones that I've heard of, long reputation, ones that pay 5c/w+, then ones that have published authors I'm a fan of (for example, Shotgun Honey, even though it doesn't pay). To date, I haven't reached the bottom of my lists for the stories I'm submiting.