Dead Letters

shadowsminder

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At what point do you consider a non-response from a market to be a dead letter rejection?

Also, do you send an official withdrawal if the editors don't respond to a query about your submission, or do you simply move on?
 

shadowsminder

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Was this thread moved, or did I accidently put it within Ask the Editor? My intention was to hear from other writers about submissions tracking.
 

Thedrellum

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I would go by the market's own statements about it's response time first, and then use the Submission Grinder to see what average response times are. The Grinder also records dead letter percentages.

I have a lot of stuff to submit, so I usually don't consider a submission dead until 8 months to a year have passed, but I don't really suggest waiting that long.
 

novicewriter

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Hi. Usually, publishers would have that information about submission wait times on their websites.
 

shadowsminder

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Thanks for the responses, @Thedrellum and @novicewriter. The magazine that was bothering me the most states in the submission guidelines that it aims for a two-week response time and instructs to query after a month. From what I surmise from its listing in The Grinder, that market is non-communicative. I've queried and waited more than two months, total. I'm no waiting a half-year for a response for a market that competes with fifty others.

Maybe more writers will see the Dead Letters percentage go up and update their submissions for more accurate data.

After more consideration, I've decided whether or not an official withdrawal is worthwhile depends on the submission and publication process. I won't bother for email submissions that didn't receive confirmations.
 

novicewriter

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Thanks for the responses, @Thedrellum and @novicewriter. The magazine that was bothering me the most states in the submission guidelines that it aims for a two-week response time and instructs to query after a month. From what I surmise from its listing in The Grinder, that market is non-communicative. I've queried and waited more than two months, total. I'm no waiting a half-year for a response for a market that competes with fifty others.

Maybe more writers will see the Dead Letters percentage go up and update their submissions for more accurate data.

After more consideration, I've decided whether or not an official withdrawal is worthwhile depends on the submission and publication process. I won't bother for email submissions that didn't receive confirmations.


Oh...more than a two-month wait? Then, yeah, I'd also assume that that one was a rejection, since their guideline deadline already passed a long time ago.