Below are the third and fourth articles in a series on getting published by Patricia. Great advice for all of us!
EDITOR’S RANT
by
Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Below, examples of email submissions that drive an editor wild. Adapted by Patricia Wellingham-Jones from WORDS Literary Journal editor/publisher Lois Peterson, June 2002. Published in Writers’ Forum, October, 2002.
- poetry in the body of the message, despite a request for it as an attachment
- attachments with no contact information at all
- attachments in all manner of (unreadable) formats, despite specific requests
- email asking us to 'choose something from my website'
- emails asking us to describe standard manuscript format
- an email submission with a 27,000-words attachment
- emails with a request for detailed response to the submission, despite guidelines offering only a brief response
- an email (her personal favorite) saying that as I was able to respond to the submission so quickly I must not have bothered to read the work, and didn't I have anything else to do at Christmas? (Do we need to add to the guidelines that rudeness is not the way to anyone's heart, and disputing our integrity will ensure that we never forget your name?)
- emails of work sent to 20+ markets besides ours (we can tell by the email's 'to' line), with no mention of this in the cover letter, if there is one
E-MAIL HAS CHANGED MY WRITING LIFE
Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Until a year and a half ago, I was a happy dinosaur, thrilled with being able to edit on the computer long documents without having to retype whole pages and content with sending my work snail mail into the vast deep, waiting for months, maybe forever, for a response. Shortly after I finally got online, though, I noticed that my writing life had changed.
First, of course, was speed. When editors did accept poetry or short story submissions by e-mail, I got them out - and received - in a flash. Thoughtful editors (there are many) sent a quick reply saying the work was safely there.
Also speedy were the answers to questions from editors (clarification, extended biography, a poem lost in the shuffle) and some traditional journals accept a story, then ask for it to be e-mailed to save staff the chore of retyping.
A second change I noted with e-mail was in relationships. Because of the ease and informality (which can be overdone and must be guarded against), I now have personal relationships, even friendships, with editors.
A third change is that helping one another is easier now. An example: a friend was writing an article on labyrinths of the region; I happened to know of one she didn’t. I scanned clippings from my file and sent them to her. This was accomplished in minutes; she met her deadline with new information.
Other benefits: An English colleague saw my e-mail address in a journal and ordered books; a friend in Mexico asked for permission to use my poems on his new website promoting that region; a book in Britain will use material I sent to my author-friend in an instant; photos zip through cyberspace to illustrate articles. It is easy now (although not necessarily painless) to critique, edit, and consult across space and links with Internet research capability are a bonus, too.
I haven’t yet taken an online course - but I may. I have participated in a long-distance music and poetry fest (put together in Redding, California by Janan Platt and in Pennsylvania by Thom Williams). I’ve written to authors about their books - and sometimes gotten a response.
Recently I learned about a service listing contests and opportunities. Got published in one of them, whizzed the information out to 75 online friends. I forwarded that information to an editor friend who can use it for his journal’s contests. Of course, this may lead to the problem of being on a thousand mailing lists, but I figure I can unsubscribe if it becomes too much.
There is a down side to my e-mail writing life. If I’m not careful, I spend precious time writing - letters. I have a whole set of friends I’ll never meet but spend more time with than with my family.
Ever come home from a vacation to a stack of e-mails piled higher than your computer screen? Add a couple of mailing lists and you’ve got overkill. Not to mention the spam. And the worry about viruses. Not everything about e-mail is rosy.
Still, now that I’m up and running and getting a feel for how to control this new toy, I think the dinosaur will stay out of her cave and play with the world.
END
PWJ Publishing
