I mailed off 12 more queries yesterday, bringing the numbers to 23 queries still out there, 4 rejections. It occurred to me that people who are sensitive about the crits they receive probably just haven’t been submitting enough. The rejections give you callouses.
Anyway, I got a rejection from Writers House (which I had addressed to Writer’s House) yesterday, and the form letter was devoid of any false encouragement. No “I enjoyed your submission, but it’s not for me,” or “We read your query with interest, but…” The only thing close to a platitude was where she wished me luck in submitting elsewhere.
The silly part is: I missed the platitudes.
Then at the bottom, under her name, it says, “Dictated but not read”. What does that mean? Does that mean she dictated this form letter to someone else, but didn’t read it after? Why would someone need to put that in?
Filed under: Life
“Dictated but not read”
The message was transcibed, and it is a legal disclamimer to cover someone’s butt in case the transciber messed up.
“Transcribed materials routinely contain errors and omissions. Granted, the task of reading and correcting one’s own transcription is tedious, at best, and often seems like a waste of time.”
Someone told a peon what to write. And, no, they didn’t read it afterwords. It could be for a bulk number of manuscripts.
I have only done e-queries to date, but will be doing mailers soon. I am wondering if the platitudes will be the same.
When I used to dictate letters, they seldom if ever came out the way I dictated them. At first I would send them back to the pool to be fixed, but after awhile I just started fixing them myself. I could get the letter out to the customer quicker that way. It’s so much easier nowadays when you just type it into the computer, proofread it, and print it out. No other parties involved.
“dicated but not read”
That means she “dictated” that you wouldn’t be published, but that is despite the fact that she had “not read” you book.
Sorry, Sherri. Keep plugging.
Ditto the troubled teen.
Hang in there! There’s nothing worse than everyone liking you or your writing, you want someone to be amazed and to not understand why everyone hasn’t published you already…it will come! We say back home, “I’m holding thumbs for you”!