Rant Time.To all you writers out there, allow me to enlighten you to a new form of editorial cowardice.
If it weren't bad enough to receive a form letter rejection that offers no hint to the real reason your story was rejected other than the editor really has no time to deal with your shattered ego...
If it weren't bad enough to receive a semi-personal rejection letter that flat out lies to you...
Now we have editors who simply don't respond at all. "If you don't hear from us within three weeks, you can assume we weren't able to use your work."
Thanks for nothing.
If I take the time to write a story, to read through your website to find out what you publish, to follow your ticky little submission guidelines as to format and where you want the page numbers and what font you prefer, and not send you a simultaneous submission or something that has been published somewhere else, and then wait three weeks to hear from you, the least you can do is send me two lines of bullshit why you can't use my story at this time and good luck with it elsewhere.
5 comments:
You would think a publication that can make all of its decisions within 3 weeks would have the time to send off a quick note.
Hey Jeff. I just stumbled onto your blog from Pesky's blog(I'm over at westtennessee.blogspot.com) It's nice to see a Memphis fantasy writer around. I was hoping to read some fantasy for the first time in years over the summer between teaching and law school. I think I'll check out something of yours. Keep writing, man.
Arrgh! I've notice that recently. I queried Edgar Magazine after my story'd been there five months and the editor chided me for not paying closer attention to the line in the guidelines stating "SHOULD YOUR WORK BE ACCEPTED, we will do our best to get back to you in a timely manner, which may take up to 90 days since we are a quarterly publication."
Rejections are disappointing enough, but a no-reply rejection?! I've been publishing stories for four years, and this is the first time I've experienced this.
I blame it on global warming -- everyone's just plain hot and sticky!
I still haven't heard back from a publisher in 2 years. Yes I gave up on them and the mindless drivel that I had thought was a manuscript but don't tell me they didn't lose the packet and were too embarrased to tell me.
Sara, I'm guessing this is a book publisher, right? I'd send them a letter telling them you're pulling it.
The same thing happened to me. This publisher had my 3 chapters and a synopsis for two years. For the first year or so, he kept promising me that he'd get to it. He even once said he'd read part of it and liked it. Then he stopped returning my emails. Every time I called, he wasn't there. Etc.
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