Question: What do you do if you're awake at 3 am?
Answer: Submit your novel to a publisher, then return to bed.
Which is what I did last night/this morning. I submitted the first three chapters of my manuscript: a woman invites her children to Switzerland to celebrate her hotel's 40th anniversary, not realising that they have secrets and anxieties that will play out during their visit.
Later this morning, around 11 o'clock, when I finally surfaced, I received the following email:
"Dear Jane Riddell
Many thanks for thinking of us here at Tartarus and for submitting Water's Edge. Your novel looks interesting, but unfortunately we're not the publisher for you. We are a small independent press specialising in classic and contemporary literary supernatural/horror strange fiction. You can find out more about us at www.tartaruspress.com.
I'd like to wish you all the best in your writing career...."
You can imagine my squirming. Also my gratitude that they didn't give me a bollocking or make some scathing remarks about the importance of doing research before submitting work. In fact, I did check out their website and can't think why I didn't realise that what they publish is so very different to what I write. I wasn't that sleepy or else I would have been in bed, not sitting at my desk as the sky grew lighter. After all, I was compos mentis enough to be aware that the website Vamplit Publishing is unlikely to be interested in my novel.
I've relayed this embarrassing incident to a couple of people: their response - simple, turn one of the principle characters into a vampire.
Why didn't I think of this?
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment