Rules are for fools...

[Boneman]

At the WFC, there was a one panel where the question was asked: "What advice would you give to an aspiring writer wanting to submit to you?" and one respondee leaned into the microphone and said: "read the *imprecation* guidelines." There was a great deal of laughter for this, followed by a lot of examples from the publishers on the panel where not only had someone ignored the guidelines, but they had ignored rules of common decency. I was just checking Gollancz's submission guidelines, even though I knew them, and as it's sunday, and I was between edits, I started reading some of the comments by aspiring writers. If you want a good laugh, it's worth taking a look.

Friday Reads: Our Submission Guidelines | Gollancz blog

Initially, there are some responses by the Gollancz team, but as more and more queries come in, you sense the growing frustration, and eventually, the will to actually reply, when the answers are contained in the guidelines, but it appears some writers are too lazy to actually read them. My favourite is way down on Oct 14th, by someone who puts her picture in the query, (so she could be recognised, presumably, the next time she bumps into Gollancz employees at a convention!) and asks:

Hello Team Tor, do you accept simultaneous submissions?/QUOTE]

For a while I stared at it, thinking it must be a joke, a way of getting attention, and then realized she must have emailed Tor books and asked 'Hello team Gollancz, do you accept simultaneous submissions?' Do you suppose she's wondering why she hasn't had a reply? [Apologies if it's anyone in this community, but I just can't see that happening...)

Now bearing in mind this is just a blog by Gollancz, keeping everyone up to date, giving out interesting news and so on, what possessed this person to write to it?:

Hi,
I was reading my copy of “Deadlocked” by Charlaine Harris this morning on the bus to work, Long story short, 4 pages are missing. Can you please email me the missing pages, they are page 303 to 306
Thanks,

Beggars belief, and I now understand why the wfc panel didn't actually laugh when the audience did...

Do read some of the end ones, they are horribly funny!

 

[tinkerdan]

I'm not surprised. And these guidelines are fairly simple. Perhaps too simple and there are people out there looking up for that other shoe to drop.

Really though this is a phenomenon consonant to allowing comments to be posts on the Internet. This is why sites have devolved to all sorts of means of telling if there is a real person on the other end and its sad to say we have yet to come up with a test for intelligent life on the other end.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

As a former acquisitions editor I can tell you it's a minor miracle when a submission actually follows the guidelines. Some are more innocent, others are pure stupidity.

I remember a wonderfully funny website featuring rejection letters, frustrated editors, and authors. For the life of me I can't remember the name. The set up is basically editors stop being overly polite and really let fly with their honest responses. Anyone? Bueller?

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I wonder - did they ever send her the pages?!!!

Cheers, Greg.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Well, her email address is right there, so maybe somebody will send her the pages.

It has to be that someone tore those pages out, not that they were missing when it was printed -- unless it's a humongous book, pages in the 300s wouldn't be missing without some corresponding missing pages earlier in the book, and either way it would be more than four pages. I had that problem with John Varley's "Steel Beach", but it was missing a signature of at least 16 pages and had a repeat in their place of some other 16 pages (or however many it was, I forget). It was fun, explaining that to Barnes & Noble.

So, I wonder, should I ask them if they accept email submissions?

 

[Hex]

So, I wonder, should I ask them if they accept email submissions?

What harm could it do? Ask them if they accept short stories and submissions from overseas while you're at it. I'm sure they don't have anything else to do.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Yeah, I have about ...let me see now... maybe 9000 words of short stories that would make a great anthology! I could email it to them and I'm sure they'd just love it.

It's all in Comic Sans 8pt pink, but they won't mind.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Yeah, I have about ...let me see now... maybe 9000 words of short stories that would make a great anthology! I could email it to them and I'm sure they'd just love it.

It's all in Comic Sans 8pt pink, but they won't mind.

I got a proposal once that was printed on a regular sheet of paper with a full-page, full-color picture of tulips for the background. The font was black and tiny. There was no background color with the text box to make the type easier to read. It's amazing what people think is acceptable.