No Reply Frustration

[peggychristie]

I'm curious to see how the rest of you deal with the frustration of receiving no responses from publishing houses. Usually when I submit something, and let's say the RT is 90-120 days, I always wait until a couple of weeks AFTER the 120 days to send a query. If I don't hear anything again, sometimes I know emails float off into the ether and just get lost, I'll wait another 3 months then send a second query.

It's after this point, when I get no response, that my frustration and anger start to get the better of me. Luckily, I don't turn into a raging 5 year old having a temper tantrum and send an all caps email screaming "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!". I begin to think, though, that the particular publishing house is acting in a very unprofessional manner. I understand that the smaller ones usually have only 1-3 people running the whole show so emails get back logged, work piles up, etc. But shouldn't they be able to send a quick email with "hey, yeah, we got your mss but we're just backlogged. We'll get to it in a few months, next year, never, go fuck yourself, etc."

What do you guys do to alleviate the frustration, aside from pulling the submission (which I'll do if they've not responded in a year)?

P

[MontiLee]

There has to be something on their pages that has an info email. If you've waited the prescribed amount of time and it's been weeks longer, you have the right to get around the editor to inquire as to the backlog.

You don't want to bad mouth them but you can go to places like Absolute Write and vent. Lots of publishers have an eye there any maybe you'll catch an eye.

As for dealing with it, I just write more, so the next place I submit to that responds has more to look forward to.

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