[Publisher] Angry Robot Books

It's a completely new team, so in all honesty they're not even going to know.

The 2018 job posting

PeteMC said:

They really are. I'm not sure you're going to get an experienced commissioning editor for that sort of money, which is rather worrying.

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I went to look up the original AR posting a few times, and today I finally did a real search for posterity. [Why waste the research, eh?] So for anyone else wanting to know the details...

Commissioning editor, senior job
Publicity / editorial coordinator, the comm. editor's asst.

I didn't think everyone else was joking about it being a really low wage. I just wanted to see how bad it was. It's bad.

I hope anyone working with the new crew is pleasantly surprised.

Best,

*---

P.S. Should note that I used to freelance for AR from 2009-2015. Copyedited 21 books, proofread one.

writera said:

It's a completely new team there now, right? I might have an old shelved novel I'll submit to them. I didn't submit in their last open door, as the rules indicated not to resubmit previously rejected work and I had a novel that had been rejected a year or two previously by them by my then agent. They did make nice comments about it, though. It's since been rewritten/re-edited and shelved, so I might submit it to their next open door. Considering it's a new team of editors, hopefully that will be allowed.

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Send it.
I spoke to the new commisioning editor at Eastercon today and she is very keen that people submit even if it was rejected from the last open door. They are a new team and everything has a clean slate.

Thanks for this.

Some other differences from the past open doors too, it seems... https://www.angryrobotbooks.com/2019/04/open-the-doors/

Now that our new leader has settled in and learned where the kettle is, she’s opening the doors to the proverbial castle – we’re thrilled to announce that we’re holding an open submission period for the entire month of May. We’d love to see your weird and wonderful SFF novels. We’re looking for stories well told, stories we haven’t heard before, stories with a message, but most importantly we’d love to hear from writers of colour and LGBTQ authors. Send us your darlings – we’ll read every one.

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Send us a short cover letter that introduces yourself and pitches your book (max 600 words), with a separate word document attachment that includes a synopsis of the novel (max a page), followed by the first three chapters (or first 10-15 pages) to [email protected]

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Bumping this because it's May... and perhaps some folks don't know Angry Robot is taking subs now.

https://twitter.com/angryrobotbooks/status/1123499295456538626

That's the tweet opening the doors. Details at the link one post up.

Angry Robot is holding another open door submissions period from July 6 to July 19. Details here: https://www.angryrobotbooks.com/2020/06/open-the-pod-bay-doors-open-submissions-2020/ and on Twitter: https://twitter.com/angryrobotbooks/status/1278000110320918529.


Has anyone had any experience with the new team at Angry Robot?

I have! They had a tough start being thrown in at the deep end but they are are up speed now, and are good people too which always helps.

Does anyone know if their editing has improved? Back in the day it could be...less than fabulous.

Did the thing, sent around 8:30 eastern

This thread hasn't been updated in a few years and given Angry Robot is about to open submissions (they also opened in 2022 as well but no one commented here then either), I thought it was worth reactivating to discuss. Also, there was controversy with their initial decision to use AI program Storywise for sorting the submissions. This is being discussed on another thread here on AW that I've linked to below. In short, a lot of people are upset by Angry Robot's recent decision (especially this particular AI that is also associated with other things) and worry about their content being stolen too by said AI. AR has since walked it back but it seems to have left a lot of writers quite upset that they even attempted it in the first place; people said they lost respect for them that they even considered it. There was a lot of anger and dismay at their decision. I know it's social media and people tend to get outraged by a lot of things, but this really did seem to be a genuine backlash.

Here's the link to the other thread: https://absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php?threads/angry-robot-to-use-ai-to-sort-through-open-call-subs.359274/

(The new submissions are also, briefly, being discussed here - https://absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php?threads/angry-robots-2024-open-submission-sffh.359308/ but so far that one is only one post.)

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So is anyone planning to submit to them? And overall, general thoughts on this publisher? I believe it's under new management and changed hands in recent years - can anyone shed more light on that?

My own experience with them is from many years ago and limited, but it's memorable as they did send me truly one of the strangest rejection letters I've ever gotten! It's one I still mention to people occasionally. (I must look through my old emails to see if I can find it if I still have it.) Most rejections blur in one's mind, but I guess out of all the dozens/hundreds/thousands (YMMV) of rejections some of us receive, we all have a few that stick out in our memories - the mean ones, the odd ones, the really close/high-praise ones. This was a combination of the last two, though mostly it was just odd.

Basically, they loved the novel, felt it ticked all their boxes and they didn't even understand themselves why they were turning it down (they actually said that). It wasn't one of these letters where it's praise, praise, then some negative feedback ("we liked A and B but ..."); it was all praise. Maybe they were just trying to be nice, but it really was odd - it was like someone having an existential crisis in the midst of writing a rejection, almost like they set about to write an acceptance letter and changed midflow into a rejection. It sort of messed with my head at the time (and still does a bit lol) as it left me even more confused about that particular novel being rejected. (ETA - My memory of the rejection itself is very clear but the recollection of the timeline of the rejection is a bit muddled. It seems my former agent submitted the novel to them according to previous posts here but I remember it as me submitting to one of their open doors - not the last one, but a few years before that. I only remember the one rejection but it's possible I resubmitted it after my agent submitted to them as that book was reworked quite a lot.) I do wonder if I decide to submit a novel to their new open door (which I'm still debating given the AI controversy linked to above) if I should send that original novel they rejected/almost accepted or if it would matter now. Might just be better to send a newer work.

(ETA - I'm starting to wonder if it was even them. I'm fairly sure it was, but maybe it was someone else I confused with them like Head of Zeus. I remember the email itself so clearly but given the dates are a bit of a blur, it's possible I got the publisher wrong. I do think it was Angry Robot but now I'm doubting myself. I'll update this if I ever find the email in my archives.)

writera said:

This thread hasn't been updated in a few years and given Angry Robot is about to open submissions, I thought it was worth reactivating to discuss. Also, there was controversy with their initial decision to use AI program Storywise for sorting the submissions. This has since been walked back, but I think the thread discussing that should be linked here too for posterity:

https://absolutewrite.com/forums/in...use-ai-to-sort-through-open-call-subs.359274/

(The new submissions are also, briefly, being discussed here - https://absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php?threads/angry-robots-2024-open-submission-sffh.359308/ but given that thread is only one post maybe it could be merged into this one?)

-

So is anyone planning to submit to them? And overall, general thoughts on this publisher? I believe it's under new management and changed hands in recent years - can anyone shed more light on that?

My own experience with them is from many years ago and limited, but it's memorable as they did send me truly one of the strangest rejection letters I've ever gotten! It's one I still mention to people occasionally. (I must look through my old emails to see if I can find it if I still have it.) Most rejections blur in one's mind, but I guess out of all the dozens/hundreds/thousands (YMMV) of rejections some of us receive, we all have a few that stick out in our memories - the mean ones, the odd ones, the really close/high-praise ones. This was a combination of the last two, though mostly it was just odd.

Basically, they loved the novel, felt it ticked all their boxes and they didn't even understand themselves why they were turning it down (they actually said that). It wasn't one of these letters where it's praise, praise, then some negative feedback ("we liked A and B but ..."); it was all praise. Maybe they were just trying to be nice, but it really was odd - it was like someone having an existential crisis in the midst of writing a rejection, almost like they set about to write an acceptance letter and changed midflow into a rejection. It sort of messed with my head at the time (and still does a bit lol) as it left me even more confused about that particular novel being rejected. (ETA - My memory of the rejection itself is very clear but the recollection of the timeline of the rejection is a bit muddled. It seems my former agent submitted the novel to them according to previous posts here but I remember it as me submitting to one of their open doors - not the last one, but a few years before that. I only remember the one rejection but it's possible I resubmitted it after my agent submitted to them as that book was reworked quite a lot.) I do wonder if I decide to submit a novel to their new open door (which I'm still debating given the AI controversy linked to above) if I should send that original novel they rejected/almost accepted or if it would matter now. Might just be better to send a newer work.

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Might be interesting to see if the AI likes it better, or indeed given the strangeness of the rejection, perhaps fresh, inhuman eyes will now want it?

A friend of mine is published by them and I nearly sold them a novel about 10 yrs ago. They get books into bookstores.
What's to lose by subbing?

I went ahead and subbed to AR's open call yesterday, since I'd been considering them for that particular book anyway. However, I had issues with the second (presumably) non-AI link they provided so I ended up subbing twice, once through the link and again from my regular email. The response I got said Thank you for your interest and discussed the dates and parameters without directly confirming whether they'd received it or not. I sent a note via Reply asking if they'd received either, both, or neither of my subs. As of this morning I haven't heard back. So I may or may not be entered. Did anyone else sub and get an actual confirmation of receipt?

Not that it matters; I'm still revising and tweaking the book. This just gives me a deadline now. When the book's ready I'll consider whether I should wait or just go ahead and start querying elsewhere. If AR does get back to me with an offer--well, I'll cross that bridge when/if I get there.

Pterofan said:

The response I got said Thank you for your interest and discussed the dates and parameters without directly confirming whether they'd received it or not. I sent a note via Reply asking if they'd received either, both, or neither of my subs. As of this morning I haven't heard back. So I may or may not be entered. Did anyone else sub and get an actual confirmation of receipt?

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They likely didn't take the email submission.
From their website (emphasis mine):

Submissions sent through this inbox will be subject to longer wait times for responses from the team, and anything sent before the 27th will not be considered.

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Looks like they only want people using the email on the last couple of days.

@Pterofan - I got an email back saying "hello, thank you for your interest ..." and then discussing the dates. So if you got an email like that (and it seems you did), it would appear to be the acknowledgement and your entry was presumably logged?

@Cyia - Their submissions info changed again. The full dates were only when they were accepting Storywise. They then updated their open submissions to accepting emails to a non-AI email but only on the 22nd & 23rd April. This is the update they posted:

Timeline: The inbox will be open for two days on 22nd – 23rd April

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Wow. They really shrunk the timeline. I never saw the update and sent something this morning. Just got a mailer-daemon failure notice.

Cyia said:

Wow. They really shrunk the timeline. I never saw the update and sent something this morning. Just got a mailer-daemon failure notice.

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Why does it feel like they're punishing people for protesting their AI grab?

(Yes, I'm cynical today.)

lizmonster said:

Why does it feel like they're punishing people for protesting their AI grab?

(Yes, I'm cynical today.)

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They weren't using generative AI, though, and it wasn't scraping the entries, so I don't get the hate. Unless I'm missing something, (highly possible) it's sorting software.

writera said:

@Pterofan - I got an email back saying "hello, thank you for your interest ..." and then discussing the dates. So if you got an email like that (and it seems you did), it would appear to be the acknowledgement and your entry was presumably logged?

@Cyia - Their submissions info changed again. The full dates were only when they were accepting Storywise. They then updated their open submissions to accepting emails to a non-AI email but only on the 22nd & 23rd April. This is the update they posted:

https://angryrobotbooks.com/2024/04/open-submissions-2024-update-15th-april-2024/

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Writera: Sounds like you got the same one I did. I expected an automated reply would say something along the lines of, "Your submission has been received." I also got an "error" message the first time through, which is why I re-sent it from my email account as opposed to the app/link.

Here's hoping we got in. Only time will tell.

Cyia - Darn. Sorry about that. However, if the AI threats turn out to be real, you may have dodged a bullet.

Cyia said:

They weren't using generative AI, though, and it wasn't scraping the entries, so I don't get the hate. Unless I'm missing something, (highly possible) it's sorting software.

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Storywise uses third-party data sets in their software, so they're already operating with stolen data. In my opinion, it's an ethical breach for AR to work with them, and I don't trust Storywise not to sell what they're fed.