Goodness. This strikes me as a preposterous way to spend time. The history of Dubliners gives us all the fodder we need - Joyce submitted his collection eighteen different times to fifteen different publishers before the book was finally printed. Eighteen! Fifteen! Actually, wait, why did he submit it to some publishers an extra time? Ah, never mind...
Many great works have a rejection history like Dubliners. So, what is the point of running an experiment like the one I cite above? To prove rejection is a thing?
Perhaps the point is to prove The New Yorker (and other remarkably similar publications such as True On Average) will always have more qualified applicants than available slots. This makes sense to me. If it were otherwise, these publications would skip issues or release shorter editions every once in a while. I've yet to hear of this happening. Plus, the visual evidence seems to agree with my thought - whenever I see The New Yorker sitting around on some coffee table these days, it's always the same size as the last one.
