I was going through my submissions record earlier, seeing what was out with whom and whether any of the recipients were due a chaser. I got irritated again when I re-read some of their submission guidelines.
Most small press publishers, and some agents it seems, use form rejections. Some of them even apologise for the fact that they don’t have the time to respond personally to every submission. There’s no need. I well understand that they get a lot of stuff sent to them, and I’m perfectly happy with a form rejection. At least I know that the work has been rejected and I’m free to send it somewhere else. What bugs me are the ones who say ‘We will only respond to those people with whom we want to work.’ In other words, they won’t bother to tell you that they’re not interested. What’s more, they won’t even tell you how long you have to wait before you can assume they’re not interested. This is lacking in both courtesy and respect, so let’s look at the balance of power in this situation.
It’s all on the side of the publishers and agents, because they know that writers are desperate to be published. And it appears that a lot of publishers and agents are content to exercise that power by adopting an offhand attitude to writers. So let’s recap.
People were telling stories long before publishers came on the scene. They will continue to do so even if every publisher and agent goes out of business tomorrow. And some of those storytellers will write their stories down. The fact is that writers don’t need publishers in order to write. The advantage of having a publisher is that it gets the work in front of a lot of people, but they aren’t necessary for the creative act to take place. The converse is not true, however. Publishers and agents do need writers. Without writers, there would be no reason for them to exist.
So is it so unreasonable to expect those in the publishing world to afford the proper level of respect to the writers who provide the very reason for their existence. As it stands at the moment, it’s rather like having a religion in which the gods worship the humans. Or, to put it another way, the tail seems to be wagging the dog here.
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2 comments:
Only responding to people whom they want to work is just insane, I can't even believe they admit it. It's perfectly fair for you to try more than one publisher/agent at the same time (unless specifically noted otherwise) so I wouldn't bother to inform them at all if you were to get an offer elsewhere. It sounds like a haphazard business practice on their part and one guaranteed to reap what it sows.
You'd think this would be highly uncommon, wouldn't you? I have only three things out at the moment, and two are with people who say they only repsond if they're interested - one publisher and one agent. I've encountered a number of small press publishers who say the same thing, including several who also say they don't accept simultaneous submissions. That's when it gets really unfair, and I took issue with one of them once. Their reply was merely dismissive. So far, I've found it isn't at all uncommon among agents.
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