Covid-19 Drags Publishers Into the 21st Century

 

Covid-19 isn’t a good thing, but it does have some useful consequences.

Last week I finished another round of publisher submissions for one of my middle-grade historicals, and it was easier than the previous time I submitted (a different book) to these same publishers. Then, three out of six took submissions by email, while the others required snail mail submissions. This time only one required snail mail submissions. So it appears that Covid has dragged two publishers—or 33% of the sample—into the 21^st century.

I never could understand why publishers preferred hard copies. Some of it may be paranoia about viruses, but requiring submissions as Word or PDF documents makes them unlikely, and good virus software detects and eliminates scripts and any other minor problems that may attach to those types of documents.

Email benefits the writer, the publisher, and the environment. I don’t have to waste money on paper, ink, and postage or spend time going to the post office. Editors don’t have to lug around paper documents but can read submissions right on their laptops or tablets. And if the editor isn’t interested, the submission can be deleted without having to recycle the paper, thus helping the environment.

It’s possible that those two publishers were teetering on the edge of the 21^st century already and would have gotten there without the pandemic. Still, I’m glad the pandemic has caused some publishers to rethink their submission requirements.

But I’ll be even happier if one of them accepts my book.