Submission Shouldn't Entail Submission

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Phoebe 79No Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.phoebenorth.com%2F2009%2F07%2F01%2Fsubmission-shouldnt-entail-submission%2FSubmission+Shouldn%26%23039%3Bt+Entail+Submission2009-07-01+21%3A22%3A00Phoebehttp%3A%2F%2Fphoebeeating.dreamhosters.com%2F%3Fp%3D79

Really nice rejection from GUD Magazine this morning, after the story in question was short-listed:

Hi Phoebe

It was a really hard decision to send this piece back to you as I
thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Unfortunately I don’t have room for it
in my issue. A lovely retelling, though.

Best of luck with this piece in other markets.

Sincerely,

Debbie Moorhouse

Sweet, right? I’ll be shipping the same story off to Strange Horizons, I think, as soon as I get home.

When I first started sending out work, I didn’t really appreciate the importance of nice rejections. Mostly, I just felt burned. Now, though, particularly as I’ve been sending out work to “bigger” (i.e. paying) markets, nice rejections are a little rarer. Generally, I’m starting to appreciate certain things about publishers. Namely, the type of consideration they seem to give your work, how easy (or difficult) they make it to submit to them, an absence of border-line insulting form letters. Form letters, I understand, are a necessity. But the ones with the little jabs–I’m looking at you, Ploughshares (“We regret that the manuscript you submitted does not fit our current editorial needs.” Yeah, I regret it too.)–just really get to me. They don’t strike me as particularly respectful.

I’ve talked about this before, but I generally don’t send out mail submissions. There is really no reason for this other than laziness. It’s work to do so, and the sort of work that is easily put off. That’s simply not true of places that accept online submissions. I’m not saying that the work of sending writing out isn’t necessarily worth it, only that it’s easy to procrastinate on when there are more attractive alternatives (namely, believe it or not, writing) available, or when there are easier submission systems available. I can’t tell you how many times in the last year I’ve meant to submit to some place that only takes mailed submissions only to find an equally high-quality and reputable market that takes online submissions.

And I appreciate that the editors in question want to make it easy for me to contact them. Like considerately written form rejections, it makes me feel valued. In fact, I’ve often heard editors cite one common argument against online submission systems: that they cause too many people to submit. Somehow, I fail to see that as a problem–and I’ve read slush before! More submissions mean more crap, sure, but undoubtedly it also means that more quality writers will be approaching markets they wouldn’t otherwise consider. That, to me, is a good thing.

And it could be naive of me, but I have trouble seeing how it could possibly be a bad thing for an editor. I assume that editors are in it, in part, to discover new and exciting writing–not to hold the golden gates of publication closed from the slush-stained masses. I assume that editors value their writers’ time and contributions, even when that expenditure of time–on either side–doesn’t result in a sale.

I assume, I assume, I assume.