Chad, I know you feel me

[rinue]

I've been watching the mail for a rejection from Zoetrope All Story (I always assume rejection, because odds) and it hasn't come yet, although other people have gotten rejections who submitted more recently, per Duotrope. And it is totally reasonable that Zoetrope would hold my story for a bit, because they like me from the screenplay competition and we have that past relationship. Also, I love this story. It's the one with the haunted card deck.

But.

I am seized with anxiety that I didn't enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope.

I think I did. I have a memory of addressing it to myself all fancy so that I would remember, and of putting a Johnny Cash stamp on it because I would enjoy getting a piece of mail with a Johnny Cash stamp, and of deliberating whether it was better to place it on top of the manuscript or beneath the manuscript.

But I am a fiction writer and I could have made all that up.

Comments

[bevjunior]

There are places that still ALLOW a SASE? I didn't know this ...

[knaveofstaves]

There are places that DON'T? It has been too long since I submitted something to anyone.

Also, SASEs are one of those things that make me do quadruple takes. Also the garage door and airplane boarding passes.

[rinue]

Pro-market holdouts include The Paris Review, Harper's. . . You're right that it's increasingly rare. I get it, though. Discourages people from submitting stuff they know won't fit becase "why not, it's just a click."

(Which I will totally do. I will totally make a longer shot submission if it's electronic. But my stuff is readable and some of the things that come through slush piles are not. As I am sure you know, having slush-read.)

For instance, I consider Zoetrope and Tin House fairly similar as markets - similar pay, similar readership, similar prestige and percieved hipness. Going by Duotrope reports, in the last 12 months Tin House (electronic submissions) has 619 reported fiction submissions. Zoetrope (postal submissions) has 157, with a response time that's half as long and personal responses that are twice as high.

Even going through sending form rejections after reading the first few sentences of a lot of junk, that eats editorial time. I'm surprised more publications aren't holding out, although I guess that means they miss some of the "first round" traffic since I'd figure most authors try places with e-subs before they put something in the mail. (But again I'm really only talking about slushpile authors. I think if the editor likes you enough you have their e-mail address.)

[valancy_jane]

I feel your pain. But I am sure you did include it!