Helpline: Your writing problems solved
TESSA BUCKLEY, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex
Your writing problems solved with advice from Diana Cambridge
Email your queries to Diana (please include home-town details) at: diana@dianacambridge.co.uk or send them to: Helpline, Writing Magazine, Warners Group Publications plc, 5th Floor, 31-32 Park Row, Leeds LS1 5JD. She will answer as many letters as she can on the page, but regrets that she cannot enter into individual correspondence. Publication of answers may take several months. Helpline cannot personally answer queries such as where to offer work, or comment on manuscripts, which you are asked not to send.
Q In 2014 I sent a proposal for an article to a family history magazine, who had previously published two other articles of mine. I never heard back from them. Four months ago, I sent the same proposal to another family history magazine. Again, I have heard nothing back. Can I now assume they are not interested? Another magazine, which was actively seeking articles, and which states that they devote one day a week to reading submissions, has still not acknowledged the piece I sent them two months ago. I am beginning to feel invisible.
TESSA BUCKLEY, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex
A I do not think you can ‘assume’ anything in publishing. It’s quite usual not to hear back or receive any acknowledgement for submissions: yet it’s always possible that, at the last minute, a journal may be desperate to use up material that’s in stock. I have had a two-year wait for a piece to be published – and never had an acknowledgement or any indication that it was about to be printed. And as an editor I certainly never had time to let all contributors know which issue they’d be in – there was more than enough work in actually bringing the magazine out. Accept this situation, keep submitting, and don’t feel invisible. That’s a feeling you’re creating for yourself – a pointless feeling. You’re a working writer, working within the constraints of modern publishing – engage with that.
Leggete l'articolo completo e molti altri in questo numero di
Writing Magazine
Opzioni di acquisto di seguito
Se il problema è vostro,
Accesso
per leggere subito l'articolo completo.
Singolo numero digitale
September 2016
Questo numero e altri numeri arretrati non sono inclusi in un nuovo
abbonamento. Gli abbonamenti comprendono l'ultimo numero regolare e i nuovi numeri pubblicati durante l'abbonamento.
Writing Magazine
Abbonamento digitale annuale
€69,99
fatturati annualmente
Abbonamento digitale di 6 mesi
€35,99
fatturati due volte l'anno