Sunday 3 May 2009

Feeling a twit

I feel a bit of a twit if I'm honest.
Let me explain.
In April's Writer's News (sorry to name names but it was) I saw a piece about a small publishing house that is fairly local to me and thought that I would submit to them. The remuneration wouldn't be much but I wanted to support them. The piece gave the name of the editor and both the postal and email address. I have just been and checked and it definitely says that they accept submissions by post and email. Except they don't - as the said editor has curtly just pointed out to me. Don't suppose there's much point submitting by post now either

2 comments:

Leigh Russell said...

I think the editor was out of order to be curt. It wasn't your fault. The newsletter just made a mistake. If you want to submit to this publishing house - remember most won't accept unsolicited MS - I think you could write a polite covering letter explaining the situation.

...perhaps the editor was curt because he'd received hundreds of emails from aspiring writers who'd read the same news item as you... I'd still give it a go. What have you got to lose?

I'm extraordinarily lucky that my publisher lives locally to me, but that had nothing to do with my MS being accepted. Publishers rarely accept unsolicited MS and then only if they think the book might sell. That has to be the bottom line for a publisher who invests time and a lot of money in producing a book.

Good luck with it anyway. And please visit my blog. Comments from fellow writers are always welcome.

Colette McCormick said...

To be fair to the editor I have this morning received another email from me saying that it wasn't me fault and not to worry about it. like you say when he sent the first one he might have been thinking "Oh my God not another one." I replied to his first message apologising for the mistake and explaining why it had happened and his second reply was much nicer. So I won't hold it against him. Life's too short.