Give it to me baby. That's right. Right there. Give it to me.
- Thread starter kuatolives
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I always thought thirtysomething was old, though. Until I got on the high side of twenty and then suddenly, 30 looked positively juvenile!
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I swear to God I have an arthritic knee! I can practically predict the weather with it!
Just call me Grammy.
Form Letter (6/30/07):
Dear Author,
Thank you for showing us your manuscript. As you can imagine, we receive a great many submissions, but only a small percentage of them are worthy of significant editorial attention. Yours is one of this select group.
Alas, since even a small percentage of the total manuscripts submitted is a very large number, constraints on our time and resources make it impossible for us to respond even to such high-quality submissions as yours with the close and individualized attention they deserve. So please do not take the scribbled comments below amiss; they are an indication of our highest esteem. On the other hand, please do not take these comments as a request for revisions; they are not. While we think your story has some merit, we really don't think it would work for us.
We of course wish you the best of luck submitting it to other markets.
Best Wishes,
The Editors [of Baen Books]
[The 11 lines of Comments, not "scribbled" but neatly printed, start out "[Novel] was well written, with likeable characters" and conclude "This one was a close call--kept going until p. 208" [out of 350 pp.].
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I suppose some people might say I should be encouraged by this response, in eight weeks, on a manuscript submitted to Baen's slush pile. I was not.
So close but yet so far.... (And the wording: apparently their "highest esteem" is expressed by rejecting things. Ha.)
Dear Author,
Thank you for showing us your manuscript. As you can imagine, we receive a great many submissions, but only a small percentage of them are worthy of significant editorial attention. Yours is one of this select group.
Alas, since even a small percentage of the total manuscripts submitted is a very large number, constraints on our time and resources make it impossible for us to respond even to such high-quality submissions as yours with the close and individualized attention they deserve. So please do not take the scribbled comments below amiss; they are an indication of our highest esteem. On the other hand, please do not take these comments as a request for revisions; they are not. While we think your story has some merit, we really don't think it would work for us.
We of course wish you the best of luck submitting it to other markets.
Best Wishes,
The Editors [of Baen Books]
[The 11 lines of Comments, not "scribbled" but neatly printed, start out "[Novel] was well written, with likeable characters" and conclude "This one was a close call--kept going until p. 208" [out of 350 pp.].
--------------------
I suppose some people might say I should be encouraged by this response, in eight weeks, on a manuscript submitted to Baen's slush pile. I was not.
So close but yet so far.... (And the wording: apparently their "highest esteem" is expressed by rejecting things. Ha.)
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Dang it, Vomaxx. You did get really close. And a personal note attached to a form is awesome! It could be the muddy middle syndrome considering where they stopped reading. That's often where most books bog down, where the pacing begins to crawl instead of run. It happened to me, too, but an agent offered representation anyway and I'm fixing the problem now. So take heart! It's fixable. It's not something that will get you shown to door every time. Good luck!
I always thought thirtysomething was old, though. Until I got on the high side of twenty and then suddenly, 30 looked positively juvenile!
That's how I'm starting to feel about 40. Yikes.
That Offspring song came out in grad school for me. Blondchen, you're still a baby. A baby with arthritis, but a young 'un nonetheless.
And this thread sucks. Here I thought when they called me Jackass that was a personalized response. Now I realize that I'm even getting form insults.
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