I’m making my second
round of submissions for Desert Jewels,
and all five publishers want hard copies. One wants the full manuscript and the
other four will take a query letter and three sample chapters, but even that
requires spending money on paper and ink and postage. Fortunately, the expense
is not a problem for me. But what about those starving artists for whom it is?
Once upon a time, postal
mail was the only way to send a manuscript. The speed of delivery improved as gasoline-powered
vehicles replaced horses, but submissions still cost the writer money for paper
and postage.
Today we can send long
documents through the ether without spending any additional money. Sure, we
have to pay for the computer and the Internet connection, but we would be doing
that anyway. And with the advances in security and virus protection, some
publishers have realized that e-mail submissions are more convenient for them,
as well. So why haven’t the rest reached the same conclusion?
If an editor accepts
e-mail submissions and wants to read a manuscript on paper, then the time and
expense of printing it off rests with the editor instead of the writer. Still, that
may not happen very often. Most submissions are rejected after the editor reads
the first few paragraphs (or less), and this initial sort could be done easily
enough on a laptop or tablet or even a smart phone.
It also hasn’t been very
long since a postage pre-paid envelope guaranteed that a rejected submission would
be returned. In the days before computers and printers and personal photocopiers,
publishers had empathy for writers who would otherwise have to make
time-consuming replacement copies each time they submitted their work. Or maybe
the publishers worried that they would lose out on the next best seller because
the author didn’t have a copy left to send them. Either way, they found the
time to stick the manuscript in a pre-addressed envelope and drop it in the
mail. Now three out of the five publishers say they won’t return the submission
under any circumstances.
Personally, I would
rather print off a new manuscript for the next publisher. What if the returned copy
is marked on or dog-eared or has coffee stains halfway through? (Coffee stains
halfway through might tell the next editor that the first one liked it enough
to read that far, but they also say that I’m not very professional.) I could
page through the material, but I might still miss something. So even when a
publisher is willing to return the manuscript, I tell it not to. But again,
what about those writers for whom money is tight?
I can sympathize with the
editors. Researching publishers takes time, and some writers think that free
means they have nothing to lose. If the manuscript isn’t ready or the publisher
isn’t a good fit, it will probably be rejected. But maybe the editor will think
the story is so outstanding that he or she will publish it anyway. (So goes the
thinking of these inexperienced writers.) Requiring hard copy submissions and
refusing to return them is one way publishers can cut down on unsuitable
submissions. But it isn’t the only way. An editor can easily delete any
submission that is sent to multiple e-mail addresses or is clearly generic.
Sometimes the good old
days had their advantages.
But this isn’t one of
them.
__________
The Pony Express poster is
in the public domain because of its age.
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