I have an anthology where the reading period starts April 1. I set it that far out (originally) to maintain some sanity during a busy period in my life.
I don’t actually care much what length people send me, so I put in a standard length range and tell people to query me for longer or shorter. Mostly, I want to avoid reading 10,000 word submissions with not enough sex in them.
An aspiring writer send me a query about the length. Her story was long at 9,000, but she was worried that there wasn’t enough sex in it. I told her the length was ok, but that the number one reason why stories get rejected from Circlet is that they don’t have enough sex in it.
She replied, sending her 9,000 word submission without enough sex in it . If you are alert, you’ll notice that it’s still March.
I sent her back a message suggesting that since the reading period wasn’t open, she might take the time to revise the story or write a new one.
I have a question for my readership. Should I read this story, or reject it on the grounds that it’s before the reading period? When should I reject it, now or when I send the rest of the rejections?
Kneel to Me
Mate: And More Stories from the Erotic Edge of SF/Fantasy
Up for Grabs
Wired Hard 4
Wishbone
What’s annoyed me as I read submissions for Scheherazade’s Facade is that, like you, I arbitrarily assigned an upper range on word limit based on what seemed reasonable. In this case, 10,000, with the knowledge that, given my total word limit for the anthology, a story would have to be extremely awesome to be that long and make it in.
And yet,some authors took that limit as a challenge, and sent in stories clocking in at 9900, 9950, even 9998 words. Sigh.
As for your question, that’s a tricky one. You’re well within your rights to reject it now and tell her to resubmit during the reading period, reject it outright based on your criteria of not enough sex, or just ignore it until the reading period starts. It’s really up to how you want to teach this author to follow the guidelines (specifically, those involving the reading period). There’s no real right answer to my knowledge, just the one reflecting how you, as an editor, care to deal with authors who can’t/won’t/don’t follow the rules. (For what it’s worth, I had one early bird, and I just told them they were early, and to try again when the period opened. I didn’t bother reading it that time. He sent it again when the period started, and I eventually got to it and rejected it for for not being what I wanted.) But that’s just me.
Looking forward to your next collection. Maybe a brainstorm will come to me. :>
As an author who regularly has to sit on her hands waiting for reading periods to start because she believes in trying to follow instructions… I lean towards “don’t read it/reject it until the reading period.” She shouldn’t be rewarded, even with a rejection, for not following instructions.
Elizabeth, I’m liking your idea. But do you think that failure to follow the rules should lead to an automatic rejection–assuming I have lots of quality submissions and want to avoid reading the bottom of the barrel?
As a writer who’s very new to the game, I’ve found myself in the position of having to read a lot of different guidelines by a lot of different editors in a very short amount of time, so that I have an idea of where my time is best spent submitting.
The point of view that has had the best effect on me so far is the following:
(paraphrased from any agents/editors)
“Not following my guidelines re length/sex content/submission dates/fonts etc. might not result in an automatic rejection, but it will mean that your story will have to beeven more truly magnificent for me to decide to use it.”
That would give you the opportunity to leave it to become the bottom of the pile to choose to read later, should the eventual slush pile turn out to be either very small or very lacking in quality pieces, or to pretty much ignore if there’s enough good stuff on top of it. But it also doesn’t tie you down to an automatic rejection if you DO happen to read (or even skim) it and it happens to magically surprisingly delight you.
Oh, and as a sadist, as well as someone who agonizes over long wait periods to hear back from editors…my vote, as insignificant as it might be, is definitely to make her wait!
Thanks for bringing this one back to my attention, Madeline. I should update this post.
What I actually did was something much nicer than I originally intended. I’m not a nice person, but I try to act like one when I’m working in Circlet’s name. So I sent the prospective author back a note pointing out that there was still a couple of weeks before the submission period even opened, and that she should take the time to re-write her story or write a new one.
She took me up on it and withdrew her submission.
Otherwise I would have rejected it at the end of the reading period.