Let's not complain about the slush pile again

Bloody hell. I wouldn't have waited more than a year. Better things to do with my life. Can't decide if she was dedicated or just stupid... (Obviously the publisher is hugely at fault but I would have gone with the 'it's your loss' thing and just moved on with my life.)
 
Why we even bother with the publishing industry when they're not interested on anything else than agented **** and celebrities. You saw in the other thread that they even game the system as the bestseller status means nothing.
 
Not sure what of make of that, really. Why not just say it's a rejection rather than keep getting pestered?
 
Actually, that reminds me: I sent a query letter and synopsis to an American Agent who handled a couple of authors whose work I thought (bending the envelope a little) I could compare mine with, and the website says 'If you haven't heard in three months, then we're not interested' kind of thing'. Well I didn't hear, so got on with work and resubmitted elsewhere. About nine months after my submission I got an email saying: 'you submitted to Miss X and she's now left that agency and started up on her own, would you like to resubmit?' Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I resent the query letter and synopsis, and blow me down, on the same day I get an email saying "I read your query and synopsis and I (sic) sounds interesting to me, can you send me the whole manuscript?"

Well of course I did. That was 6th June 2012 and I never heard another word... I've rewritten it so much since then it's almost a different manuscript, so I'll let sleeping dogs lie on this one, in case ten years pass in the same way!
 
Mouse said:
Not sure what of make of that, really. Why not just say it's a rejection rather than keep getting pestered?
Click to expand...

Bad management. I think it's better to just autoreject after a specified set of months than keep leading someone on. If I ran a small publishing company, I would probably say if we haven't accepted in 24 months, then we reject everything.
 
Also, why did she believe after 10 freakin' years they were actually ever going to read her stuff? Presumably if she was actually 'top of the pile' or 'next to be read' they wouldn't have put anything out in the 10 years she waited because they would never be reading anything...? :confused:

Now I am just thinking, what a silly woman. Should've let it go.
 
allmywires said:
Now I am just thinking, what a silly woman. Should've let it go.
Click to expand...

With other MS in submission elsewhere, why not leave that one there? [Though, of course, knowing at the beginning that it would involve ten years would likely have led to different decisions.]
 
Well, a testament to patience and persistence, if nothing else.

But good god, I was grinding my teeth when it took a magazine five months to send me a rejection letter for a 2k short story (especially when they rejected the last one in two weeks!). I can't even imagine a decade.
 
The author seems to have published everything she was writing over that time (and, possibly, from before then): twelve novels** (plus two complete series), not all of them ebooks, since November 30th 2010.

She seems to be both patient (well, too patient with that one publisher) and very confident in her work.




** - If I've counted them correctly.
 
Jack Parker said:
This is the strongest argument for self-publishing ever. Why deal with this type of thing when many publishers aren't going to promote your stuff anyway?
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I've yet to figure that. It's not like you won't be able to get an agent for other stories if your book is successful in self publishing and I've never yet heard that there's some sort of blacklist maintained on unsuccessful ones. (Is there any? I can see as how they might maintain one so as to avoid copyright problems, but I can also see how it might be unprofitable and maybe even illegal to do so. It might also crash this, and then how will we ever know the origin of the Universe? :p )

Aren't there established rules as to when you should make a withdrawal? I found this;

http://carinapress.com/blog/2011/06/how-to-withdrawing-your-book-from-consideration/

and this;

http://kellydavio.com/2011/04/15/withdrawing-submissions-how-not-to-do-it/

But they're both somewhat indefinite. Does anyone know of any better?
 
allmywires said:
Also, why did she believe after 10 freakin' years they were actually ever going to read her stuff? Presumably if she was actually 'top of the pile' or 'next to be read' they wouldn't have put anything out in the 10 years she waited because they would never be reading anything...? :confused:

Now I am just thinking, what a silly woman. Should've let it go.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was thinking -- what on earth were they so busy with for ten years, if she was next in line for so much of that time?

I also find it hard to believe that the submissions editor was the same person for the whole time. Is that a job that people stay in for so long? Or did he just never quite get around to quitting? :D
 
I'm new to this forum and in the process of sending out queries / submissions at the moment. This slush pile story is astonishing in regard to this author's patience! Unfortunately it just backs up the info I've heard about so many publishers.
 
Hi Springs,

Thanks! I've found quite a bit of useful info here. :) Hopefully it will be a chance to "compare notes" with other writers. :)

Cheers

Tracy
 
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