Brief Rant #1: Decide What the Hell You Are!

In the interests of curmudgeon-dom, I've decided to post weekly rants that are related to my chosen field. This one concerns people who can't seem to decide who or what they are. For example, I recently concluded that a would-be magazine publisher and editor was really more interested in posting his forever-long novel than in publishing the works of others. How did I reach this conclusion?

It happened by me growing tired of waiting for a response regarding a submission. Everybody misses the occasional email, but when you're continually posting "Hey check out this latest chapter of my novel" posts on Facebook, it's harder to accept that you are missing wall posts asking when the next magazine is coming out and whether or not you ever read someone's submission from six months ago!

This magazine published something of mine and I was very happy with not only the presentation of the story but the magazine itself. I read some negative things about the publisher, but that's par for the course. However, ignoring or disregaridng someone's inquiry after well beyond the supposed "reading period" is unprofessional and immature.

Why immature, you probably didn't ask?  Because it's being done in favor of incessant "looky what I wrote" postings. To be fair, all writers want their work to be recognized. But to be honest, I don't really care what you wrote if you don't care what I wrote. It's different if you're a fellow writer hawking your wares, but once you cross over into publisher territory, that makes you something different. You are symbolic of an opportunity.

So many people in this Internet Age can't figure out what they are because there are so many things available to them. But if you're going to call youself a publisher and promise a chance at publication, you better goddam well make sure you deliver, or your chapters will go unread by me and many others who now consider you a BS artist.

Rant over.