On New Year's day I spent a good deal of the afternoon preparing manuscripts for submission: printing, sorting, clipping, stuffing, addressing, posting. It was all very dizzying, and at the end of the day I had a rather formidable stack of mail. Happy New Year!
Increasingly, however, magazines and publishers are moving toward electronic submissions. These submissions via the internet are usually free (just cut/n paste or attach document) but sometimes they cost money. I've become rather adept now at signing up to submit electronically, and pay by account number as I go.
Most of these submissions are quite reasonable in price (about the same amount I'd pay to send a manuscript via the "snail mail" with return postage attached). Others, however, are a bit more pricey. Hey, what's the deal with ten-dollar per submission? Is someone trying to buy a yacht?
It is also fascinating to get rejection via email:
"Sorry, but we can't use this right now."
"We apologize for this form response, but, hey, you're a loser!"
Still, every now and again I do get the word:
"Congratulations!"
"This is excellent stuff . . . better than hard cheese'n crackers. Send us more! Send us more!"
Oh, don't worry. I shall.
No comments:
Post a Comment