Keeping Acceptances Quiet

Do you tell people (or blog) each time you get an acceptance?  I don’t.  It isn’t that I don’t trust you guys to be happy for me, I know you would be and so would the people I am closest to.  But getting a piece accepted is quite different than seeing it published.

There are more instances than I can tell you where an acceptance has led to disappointment.  I’m not the only one who has experienced it.  There are many reasons a piece doesn’t reach publication after getting a green light and no writer can anticipate every time it is going to happen.  Even a contract isn’t enough to save you from potential disappointment, though it can help in some situations.

My least favorite scenario is a publisher going under.  I hate it.  It is sad for people who owned it, it is disappointing for authors accepted for the issue that is never to come, and it sucks to be a reader with only memories of issues past.

This happened to me last year with a horror magazine I was really looking forward to seeing my poem in.  I had to find out about it being defunct from Duotrope since the editor didn’t let contributors know about it going under but maybe she was unable to do so. 

Have you guys ever had acceptances that never ended in publication?  How did you cope?  Should I tell you all about my acceptances even with knowing I might never be able to point you to the issues they end up in?