Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Editorial Hot Potato

Last week I received a most interesting series of emails.

The first email came from an editor who has been looking at one of my book proposals. I had sent him the proposal about three months ago and the proposal had, as usual, disappeared into the black sinkhole of silence. Then, suddenly, I discovered his email one morning that went something like this:

I lost your proposal, but I do want to look at it. Could you send it to me again? Oh, and by the way, I'm going to pass it along to another editor. I'm not the editor you want, anyway.

No problem.
A few days later I get a second email that read something like this:

Editor #1 passed your proposal along to me, but I'm going to send it to editor #3, since he is clearly more passionate about these kinds of projects than I am and wouldn't mind working with a loser like you. Editor #3 will likely be in touch soon, unless, of course, I (editor #2) have second thoughts or pass it back to editor #1 (where it might get lost in the slush pile again). But please check back with me (editor #2) if you want to make sure that editor #3 did receive your proposal, in which case you can rest assured that editor #1 did receive the updated version of your proposal and considered it good enough to pass along to me. Our best wishes for your continued success. (Oh, and in case you are wondering, there is no editor #4.)

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