The Dangers of Being Too Polite

[jacey]

In September 2006 I submitted 'The Ballad of Tom Ling'  to Scholastic's slushpile. (That's Scholastic in London, I even got their new address.) Then I waited. Patiently. Politely. Don't hassle the nice editors we are told. So I didn't. Three months ago I sent a written query... after fifteen months I didn't figure that was too much hassle.

No reply.

Today I finally plucked up the courage to phone them. Spoke to a nice foreign lady who didn't know the term 'slushpile' but who was willing to look up my submission history. Yes, they received it in mid October 2006. It was number 14163. They are currently reading number 14600 but... there's no record of my manuscript at all. It has vanished.

Nice lady says to send it again and she'll try to make sure it doesn't go to the bottom of the pile.

<sigh>

Comments

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Oh God! What a good thing you checked. But not good that they seem to have lost it.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

As if it isn't hard enough being unagented as it is... and not being able to sin-sub... to waste 18 months on a perfectly saleable novel it annoying to say the least.

I've just got off my arse and done another agent query. Not found anyone else since parting company with CW. I suspect I'm not persistent enough.

Are you still happy with your agent? Is she still taking on?

[julesjones]

Oh, bother, and ruder words. Sorry to hear about this, and I hope a resend works. :-(

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Oh, damn and botheration. :( But at least you phoned. I'd probably still be politely waiting.

Good luck with the next attempt!

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Don't forget to mark the mss so that it *doesn't* end up in the slushpile again.
MSS #14163 for the attention of [nice lady] (requested resubmission)
should work.

And quite frankly, no idea how many they get, but given the numbers you probably haven't lost all _that_ much time. It's still annoying, but if they were at 16000 you'd be far mor annoyed.

Best of luck!

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Given the numbers I'm guessing I've lost about six to nine months.

But the nice lady said to mark it for her attention and she'd see it didn't get to the bottom of the pile again.

Of course, shoving it under a reader's nose and saying: do something with this quick, will you because we already messed up on it, is likely to get a big fat rejection slip, but i live in hope of at least being asked for the full thing. This is synopsis and thirty pages.

[maeve-the-red.livejournal.com]

A situation I know only too well...

It sometimes annoys me that in our dealings with editors (ones that don't know us anyway) there's this assumption of 'guilty until proven innocent'; we have to assume we're in the wrong, or risk offending them.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Ohmygods, yes! It's like everything has to be ultras-polite and ultra-formal and... I'm not generally ultra-formal with anyone.