Editors and submissions -- A problem?

[trboturtle]

I was reading December 1st entry from this blog: http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/

This gist is that he just received a form rejection letter from an editor for a novel he pitched TWO YEARS AGO. The rest of the blog is about when he did it, and some advice on how to submit.

But two years for a rejection letter -- a form rejection letter? For an author with a proven track record? Makes me wonder if the job of an editor is becoming one smart people avoid......

Craig

[meg_evonne]

Hey, he got one...  That means someone finally got to it in a slush pile and at least perused it.

The days of exclusive submissions are apparently history, unless you've been expressly asked by the agent to submit or have a referral from a current client or similar.

In these days, when some agencies are saying, 'we can not reply to all queries.' is now 'okay'--well, be happy you got the rejection.

To play this game, you play by their rules and having a thick skin with an uncrushable belief in your work and your abilities is a necessity. This is not a game for the weak at heart.

I decided to edit this to share a true story that has always been an interesting treatment of human hope and optimism.

A wonderful female poet and teacher told the story about a student who had written a poem and submitted it. The poem was something that the published, well-known poet liked and recommended the student pursue. It was her first submission. It was returned in her SASE having been ripped into tons of little pieces with a snide note included. When the devastated student returned to her mentor in tears, the poet replied, "Wow, that editor was having an incredibly bad day." The student and teacher ended up laughing over the abuse of her cherished poem imagining what kind of day would make, what was probably a normally sane editor, go ape shit on this particular submission.

That is the kind of attitude you have to adapt. It ain't fair, it ain't professional, but life happens---things are handled wrong. You have to shake it off and keep going.

[Starbeam]

One thing to remember--that guy doesn't have an agent, and he's stated that he pretty much hates the idea of agents.  What I've seen from editors and agents both is that you are much more likely to get an editor to see your work if they're seeing it from an agent.  Yes, you can get interest from editors before getting an agent, but that requires having talked to them before even trying to submit.  I'm not entirely sure what changes have taken place since this entire thing, but most publishers put submissions like that into the slush pile.  Plus he doesn't exactly say if he sent it to a specific editor, by name--he just says editors.  And he's also extremely vocal about his dislike of agents, and traditional publishing--though again, no idea how any of that was when he did all this--and it's possible that the editor in question asked other editors about him.  It's a small business--if he's difficult to work with, that would get around.

Yeah, I'm probably starting to ramble.

[Kali]

Uh, why didn't he ever contact the editor?  It's quite permissible and professional to say, "I sent a submission to you six weeks ago and have yet to hear back.  Could you please confirm you received it?"  Crap happens, manuscripts get misplaced, editors leave houses, new editors come in and they bring their own stories with them with the result that the old slush pile gets buried even more.

Did he even check to make sure this editor accepts un-agented manuscripts?

If you're going to bleat about this being a business and editors should be professional, you can't then abrogate your own professional responsibilities.

[meg_evonne]

I didn't read the blog, except for a quick blush at it. I don't know of ANY editor at ANY major house who is accepting unsolicited/recommended manuscripts. They all have a policy of ignoring anything they receive. That chore has been shuffled, as I understand, to agent's associates to read. All businesses are cost shifting these days.

[Starbeam]

Uh, why didn't he ever contact the editor?  It's quite permissible and professional to say, "I sent a submission to you six weeks ago and have yet to hear back.  Could you please confirm you received it?"  Crap happens, manuscripts get misplaced, editors leave houses, new editors come in and they bring their own stories with them with the result that the old slush pile gets buried even more.

Did he even check to make sure this editor accepts un-agented manuscripts?

If you're going to bleat about this being a business and editors should be professional, you can't then abrogate your own professional responsibilities.

Considering some of the tips he gave at the end of the blog, you'd think he would've followed up.  But again, the entire thing was a challenge-though sounds more like a game-and he didn't really even care about that particular idea.  Rob and I discussed this yesterday--the guy's likely leaving out all the pertinent info like that to get people to think what he wants them to.  I've only read a couple other blog posts by the guy, but they all have this same sort of superior-than-thou sort of tone. 

And he likes to point out that all this was in 2009, before publishing changed, but even back then, I'm pretty sure most publishers weren't accepting unsolicited stuff.  Hell, when I first started looking into submission guidelines, in college-around 2000-most of what I found was that they didn't want unsolicited/unagented stuff.

[meg_evonne]

Since we are discussing agents and have mentioned referrals, here is a related post I saw on twitter.

http://www.rachellegardner.com/2011/10/agent-referrals-recommendations/

[trboturtle]

The same author has a new blog post up discussing the changing relationship between agents and writers and publishers.

Craig