![[Logo]](/images/101ReasonsLogo.png "101 Reasons to Stop Writing")
Hey, it’s (still) International Slushpile Awareness Month, so let’s find out more about what you think of the moat surrounding the Walls of Publishing.
What’s the longest you’ve ever had to wait for a response to a submission? Note that I said response. 97% of people voting for “I’m still waiting” just isn’t funny.
Vote in the sidebar.
Please note: the ‘Other’ option only takes about 100 characters. Your opus will be truncated.
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I just got a request for a partial from a query I sent in mid-January…
Are we talking about responses to unsolicited submissions, or ones where the goddamn editor asked first? After two separate dealings in the last two years, where the persons in question insisted upon my working for them and then sitting on the manuscripts for two years or more (complete with wild and shameless lies about release dates), you think I was working for Science Fiction Eye all over again.
Bernita, that’s nothing (well, from your POV I’m sure it’s great). I’m more interested in the stories of waiting almost a year to follow-up, only to hear that the agent quit six months before.
Paul, as always, you are a category unto yourself. The ‘Other’ poll option is at your disposal.
I had dinner with a friend last night who was ecstatic because she’d just had a short story accepted…she sent it in to the magazine 14 months ago.
Just out of curiosity, discovering via Wikipedia that the magazine is “on hiatus”, reading about the bankruptcy proceedings in the Wall Street Journal, getting a signed suicide note a day after the editor shoots himself, or getting calls from the Virginia State Police because the publisher is wanted for fraud all qualify as a response, right? I just want to check to make sure.
I can say that I’ve honestly never been rejected by any agent I’ve queried.
Of course, I haven’t actually queried any…
I just got a rejection on a query I submitted a year and a half ago. The agent got my name right but the title wrong. Did I mention that a client of this agent recommended me?
I find you get quicker responses if you hide in the bushes outside their house and query them in person as they’re searching for their house keys.
Dastardly agents! How dare they make mistakes! It’s a conspiracy.
Wow: I’ve just read that linked entry for the first time sicne I wrote it, and I can’t believe how circumspect I was in not mentioning Brian Townsell’s name…. ahem.
I had this discussion once with a group of friends, and Sean Williams mentioned that he’d not received a response to a story he sent Cemetary Dance five years previously. And, of course, there was the standard joke about Century being the only magazine named after its response times.
Best I’ve managed for a short story so far is two years, but then, I’ve always assumed a rejection and started sending the story elsewhere long before that.