5 Lies Writers Believe About Editors

Chaos, this has nothing to do with the thread, just wanted to say, love your cover. It jumps out at me, every time. Don't know why, but it works.

Phenomenal read!

Here are my two favorite quotes:

You [writers] get to read for pleasure, selecting material that has been through at least one filter. Whereas you turn on the tap and get a stream of nice drinkable water, we [editors] put our mouths to a sewer pipe and hope to get at least one swallow that won’t give us raging diarrhea.

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and

Next time you’re at a convention, go to the bar, and buy a drink for your favorite editor. Make sure you do it early on, because seven or eight drinks in, we’ll never remember your name. We’ll be lucky to wake up in the right hotel room, or even the right state. Who bought the drinks on a night like that will be the least of our concerns when we wake up naked atop a desert mesa covered from head to toe in blue paint.

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The post does a good job, I think, explaining things in a way that will make sense to those out there who might not know anything about the life of an editor. I particularly like this little nugget of wisdom that far too many people don't understand:

"There are no great secrets to being published. Read lots. Write stories. Lots and lots of stories. Submit the work until the stories are either accepted or rejected by every market you could bear to see your name associated with. That’s pretty much all there is to it. Everything else is basically unimportant."

Plot Device -- I also love the sewer pipe metaphor, gross as it is!

Then there's this:

Editors do build a stable of writers. The reason most people don’t see it is because by the time you come along, the editor has already established a group of authors he or she can count on. But short story writers in particular are always going on to write novels, so openings do occur from time to time.

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Translates to: "Most of the time, if the editor doesn't know you, good luck, amigo."

caw

Looks like I'm gonna be spending more time bar crawling looking for editors to bribe, lol.

/me searches for rose colored glasses


It is what it is. I never believed every manuscript gets the same about of attention. Having been working in business now for 5 years since college, I can easily see how things fall through the cracks, mood effects all.

All we can do is keep sending it out.

Straka said:

All we can do is keep sending it out.

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Well, there are firearms . . .

caw

We already knew this. The secret to publication is not just to write publishable fiction. New writers often have to write better fiction than established writers. And I'm still confident I can do that.