I received a rejection letter from XYZ Company, a division of Monolithic Children’s Books (not their real names). I figured, like most people my age, that the Monolithic company owned three children’s book imprints: X, Y and Z. It was a reasonable assumption, right? Not even close. The Monolithic company owns those three plus seven more that are known to this author.
The rejection letter was a form letter, written, most likely, by a robot and handled by a clone. The only indication that a human was involved in any way was a notation made in ink. It was an asterisk. Where was this “heartfelt” asterisk? It was next to a fine line that read: “We at XYZ have revised our submission policy … we will no longer return submission material.”
They are trying to be so nice … yet they can’t really get a feel for human behavior. It’s like your toaster oven trying to imitate your youngest daughter. No one’s buying it. They remind me of a cross between a company that owns almost every publishing house in the world … and Data from “Star Trek,” in the episode where Data turned evil.
What they’re telling us is: they value the written word above everything. However, what you’ve written has no value and will be thrown in the trash, even though you’ve included a self-addressed, stamped envelope. (A publisher once sent me an unsigned, form rejection letter and threw out my $3.95 SASE, along with my comic book! They just threw it all out.) They’re basically saying, “Even your stamps are worthless to us.” If you sent them gold, they’d tell you it’s not yellow enough and then they’d go and trash it.
Publishers buy the third house from the beach and then seem bitter about being third.
Still, publishers will promote themselves as society’s saviors and tell you how wonderful they are. Not true! I have the quintessential story about publishers. I use this anecdote whenever I’m interviewed on TV. Yes, Virginia, TV talk show guests rehearse their spontaneous banter. I call it the “Peel-and-Seal story.”
I once received a really bad rejection letter. How bad was it? This letter was so irritating, I was angry and confused before I even opened the envelope!
I received the rejection letter in the SASE I had provided for the publisher. The envelope was one of those Peel-and-Seal types; you know, there is a strip on a gluey surface and when you want to seal the envelope, you peel off the strip and press it down.
Well, someone at this publishing company, probably the same person who decided that my books were not good enough for their catalogue, licked the paper strip! That’s right, he or she slobbered all over the strip, not realizing that the strip was designed to be pulled off and pressed down. I think a baby squirrel would have been able to figure out the Peel-and-Seal system. This editor, however, did not understand how it worked. The saliva-stained envelope was flapping (because it wasn’t sealed) when it returned to me. There was no way it could be sealed with the strip in place.
I am thinking about taking the envelope to a local lab for a DNA test. Who’s saliva is on the envelope? (No one signed the letter.) Was it a combo-slobber from two people?
The Slobber-not-Seal affair begs more questions. Did the culprits lick everything they saw, such as door knobs? Did they push when the sign on the door said “pull”? Did they try to put food in their ears?
If an editor can’t figure out the Peel-and-Seal system, he or she doesn’t deserve your story. He or she doesn’t know right from wrong, good from bad, up from down. If that editor dismisses you … that’s a good sign. If he or she thinks you’re a great writer … that’s very bad.
So, let’s review. Some publishers are dim-wits with risk-aversion syndrome. If a book is a sure winner, they’ll publish it. If they think it’s something else, they’ll lick the paper strip on a Peel-and-Seal envelope and wonder, over a five martini lunch, why everything tastes like glue.
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