Friday, May 21, 2010

Wholesale slaughter

This may be a record, but today I received word of 21 non-acceptances. Not rejections, though the net effect is the same.

The editor of two publications I've been selling to for many years announced that the magazines had gotten far behind in responding to submissions--something her contributors already knew--and announced that she was going to discard all submissions received prior to a specific date. Any stories that had not already been contracted for and any stories not currently under consideration (meaning the authors of those stories had been told the stories were under consideration) could be submitted elsewhere or, should the authors wish, be resubmitted.

Sigh.

That means I have 21 manuscripts to deal with.

Sometimes being prolific can bite you in the butt.

4 comments:

sandra seamans said...

Ouch! I've never heard of dealing with a slush pile like that before. Let's hope it doesn't catch on!

Kevin R. Tipple said...

I saw her message on that list and my first thought was you were about to get slammed. I am sorry to read I was right.

Michael Bracken said...

Sandra, it probably happens more often than we realize. Michael Korda, a long-time editor with Simon & Schuster, once wrote of doing something similar when he was first hired as a slush pile reader. At least this editor was polite enough to let most of her contributors know by posting a message where we could see it.

And, Kevin, at least I can move on with these manuscripts. A couple of them had been sitting in the editor's files more than two years--even as other stories were accepted and published--but I long ago learned that these publications had long turn-times on submissions and had not yet reached the point of worry. Almost, but not quite.

Kevin R. Tipple said...

Didn't realize that anything was that old, Michael. Long turn around times seems to be standard for the market involved based won what you and others have said.