Originally published March 19, 1993, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1009
Delving into the BID mail bag, I found this letter on the top. It’s a polite and respectful missive from Rick in Missouri. Apparently endeavoring to maintain the skeptical nature of the “Show Me” state, Rick–after starting off with a terse “Mr. David” for a salutation, writes (and to be fair to Rick, who has his own writing ambitions, I’m leaving the missing words, misspellings and improper grammar intact):
“Does your greed know no bounds? I read your article on breaking as a writer first in the CBG, and recently in the Wizard Price Guide. How can you be as arrogant as to give advice to a beginning writer? As an aspiring writer, I know that the only way to break in cold; into Marvel (or DC) is to know someone, which most of us don’t. You however, worked for Marvel, and don’t expect me to believe that you would have gotten published otherwise. The same goes for your Star Trek novels, which I don’t doubt were helped by your involvement in the paperback industry.
“In addition to you being a poor example, you give poor advice as well. Since you’ve had it so easy I guess I could understand your not realizing the utter stupidity of submitting to the Big Two at all, much less to a specific title. No editor ever reads unsolicited plots. Instead of giving realistic, useful advice (such as start with independents, and find an artist collaborator), you’re feeding these kids exactly what they want to hear, instead of what they need to hear. A lot of kids are being set up for a massive disappointment when those snotty form letters start rolling in.
“While much more advice for fledging writers should be offered, you are not the man to do it.”
Now while this is not the most annoying letter I’ve ever gotten, I was impressed by your ability, Rick, to fit quite that much arrogance and incorrect assumptions into a relatively brief space. Since you yourself are an aspiring… or, to use your word, “fledging,” as opposed to “fledgling”… writer, you would seem to have a bright future ahead of you–particularly if you wind up writing for certain acerbic comic publications.
There was much about the letter I found curious. Does my greed indeed know no bounds? I don’t know. I believe my greed does indeed know bounds, although it remains shaky on state capitals.
If you’re referring to my hunger to make money off this column, then apparently you’re unaware that all the money for BID goes to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. If you’re referring to the princely sum I got from Wizard for the reprint (they sought me out, by the way; I didn’t go to them) I did indeed keep it, greedy devil that I am. It was enough, as I recall, to buy a week’s groceries.
How can I give advice to beginning writers? I suppose if they stopped asking me, I could stop giving it.
Yes, absolutely, I worked for Marvel… in the sales department, as I’ve mentioned in the past. Curiously, this was both an advantage and a disadvantage. Sure, the editors all knew me… but they know me as a sales employee. Back then there was a tremendous schism between editorial and sales. No one from the latter had ever done work for the former. There was a very simple logic involved, as far as the editors were concerned: If you were creative, you’d be working for editorial. If you were on the business side, you were not creative, because if you were creative, you’d be working for editorial. Q.E.D.
I was in sales for several years before I started showing story proposals around (using the format, by the way, that I advised in the column.) I was not welcome. One editor (I was later informed) said, “Why should we hire him to write stories? Who do we hire next… people in subscriptions? Secretaries?”
Only one editor would touch my story ideas: Jim Owsley, who was always something of a maverick and didn’t give a dámņ what people thought of him. When he bought some Spectacular Spider-Man plots off me, there were rumblings. When he assigned me to the book, there was full-fledged vituperation.
“It’s a conflict of interest!” shouted some editors, claiming I would focus my sales attention on Spec Spidey to the exclusion of other Marvel titles. So I bent over backwards not to promote, or even push, any of my work… which is probably why sales on my titles weren’t particularly good.
Eventually, when editorial saw that the sky didn’t fall… and also, when Bob Harras (with the ice broken) offered me Incredible Hulk, a title that people weren’t exactly falling all over each other to write… folks started to lighten up. Nowadays, crisscrossing between business and editorial is fairly common.
As for my Star Trek novels… sorry, Rick. Wrong again. No one at Pocket even knew I had worked in the paperback industry. They were interested in me because of my work on the Star Trek comic book for DC.
You seem to be under the impression that I had everything handed to me. I really hate to disillusion someone who is so completely sure of himself, but my first published fiction was in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine… submitted cold, unsolicited. I sold an Op Ed piece to The New York Times… submitted cold, unsolicited. And I had twenty rejections to accompany every acceptance.
My novel Knight Life was agented… which hardly guaranteed it a free ride. It was first submitted to Judy Lynn Del Rey of Del Rey paperbacks, who sent it back with a cover letter saying that the writing made her vomit. (And somewhere John Byrne is saying, “Ha! See! I’m not the only one who has that reaction!”) It was subsequently rejected by half a dozen other publishers before finding a home at Ace.
Have I caught some breaks? Unquestionably. Then again, what is succeeding as a writer–or, for that matter, succeeding in any profession–if it doesn’t involve catching breaks somewhere along the way? You can, however, increase the chances of catching those breaks if you know some of the rules. That’s all I was trying to do in the original column, as I said repeatedly: Improve the odds a bit.
Another way of improving the odds is, unquestionably, getting some previous comic book experience. Hooking up with “fledging” artists, getting published by independents, or even yourself… these add valuable credits to your resume, and help prove that you can do the job. To be honest… I kind of thought that was so self-evident that it didn’t need to be mentioned. If it would have assuaged your wrath, Rick, I certainly would have brought it up. Besides… people weren’t asking me how to break into the indies. They asked how to break into Marvel, and I gave them advice as to how to have, at the very least, a fighting chance.
But you claim that there’s no point to that. “No editor even reads unsolicited plots,” you declare. Well, you got me there, Rick. No editor does read unsolicited plots.
I never said they did.
As a matter of fact… I said they didn’t. For those who may have missed the column, my contention was that submissions should be limited to plot springboards… preferably half a page, with a full page the maximum.
I started to wonder though, Rick: What if you’re right? I mean, you were wrong about so many other things, I figured, hëll, the law of averages had to catch up sooner or later. Was it true that no editor at Marvel was reading anything unsolicited?
Certainly a staggering percentage of Marvel’s output comes from people who are now, or have been, on staff. Obviously the absolute best way to break in is to get a job at Marvel; then again, that’s not terribly useful advice to anyone not living in the New York/Tri-State area.
But is that tendency purely because of the convenience factor… or was there, as Rick implied, some sort of flat policy followed by Marvel’s editors?
I decided to call up some editors and ask. I don’t like to make flat assertions without having some sort of facts to back them up.
According to Mark Gruenwald, there is no official policy regarding unsolicited work other than “be nice” in dealing with those submitting the material. It’s left up to the individual editors as to how to handle the actual process.
“Some editors send material directly to (Glenn Greenberg), the submissions editor,” said Gruenwald. “Some will write to the more promising ones, or call them since that’s easier, if there’s a phone number. There are some editors who won’t deal with new writers because, due to their rather acerbic personality, they believe that silence is the best way to handle these things.”
All the editors I spoke with stressed the long turnaround time, due to their own workloads. They handle it in different ways.
Bobbie Chase, for example, will allow material to pile up, some times as long as six months… at which point she’ll then read through everything in one massive sitting. This, of course, means that it could take as long as half a year or as short as a week to hear back from her. But she will take the time to read the material herself.
Terry Kavanagh, on the other hand, strives for alacrity. Three to four weeks is as long as he’ll let things sit, at which point he may then read them himself. Far more likely, though, is that he’ll kick them down to Greenberg. It means that the material isn’t read by him personally; but on the other hand, it would theoretically be attended to quicker.
“It used to be that I’d read seventy to eighty percent myself,” said Kavanagh. “Now it’s maybe around thirty five percent.”
“It takes forever to get to it,” agreed Joey Cavalieri. He supported–as did all editors surveyed–the notion that would-be writers should stick to springboards. Some neos don’t even settle for sending in plots. “People send me their novels,” said Cavalieri in amazement. “They send me their screenplays.”
Nel Yomtov left himself open to reading springboards, “Depending on my schedule. These days I have trouble finding the time.”
“So much stuff comes in that I can’t guarantee that I’ll get to it,” said Kelly Corvese. “I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t promise to read everything.” Corvese, however, does tend to read submissions if he’s discussed them over the phone first with the would-be writer… and the writer reminds him in a cover letter that they had already talked about the story idea. Again, though, time constraints weigh heavily.
Danny Fingeroth will automatically pass all submissions on to Greenberg. It’s not just time limits that concern Fingeroth; it also relates to his “always being aware of (being accused of) using someone else’s ideas.”
Indeed, several editors noted that the most daunting concern about reading unsolicited manuscripts is that there may be ideas there that parallel material already in development. This can, in turn, lead to some more aggressive tyros accusing Marvel of plagiarism.
I can relate to this concern. I myself will never read any story proposals for characters on whom I am presently working. For example, a letter was forwarded to me from DC which contained, I discovered, a plot outline for an Aquaman story. I took one look at the title: “Aquaman Battles the Deep Six,” and tossed it across the room as if it had tried to bite me. Why? Because I was already planning to bring in those Kirby creations, and didn’t need a fan accusing me of swiping the notion from him.
Similarly, I was extremely relieved that a Hulk bit featuring Betty Banner shunning a gamma-irradiated chicken at the supermarket came out the same week as an identically-themed Bumpkin Buzz. The timing precluded anyone saying I was swiping from Brian Ahern (although, c’mon… give me some credit. I wouldn’t be that obvious).
Tyro writers frequently refuse to believe that minds can work in similar directions, and that can make them very difficult to deal with.
Renee Witterstaetter reiterated the problem.
Wittherste… Witterstd… Renee pointed out a Catch-22 situation in that if a tyro produces a story about a character who has his own title, the editor might not want to deal with possible plagiarism accusations. If the story features a character who’s not in use, then who’s going to want to publish it?
“Sending in a story for an existing book makes more sense,” was Gruenwald’s feeling. “You’d probably be better served trying to do a Cap story or a Hulk story.”
(Gee, thanks, Mark.)
Cavalieri offers further advice. “Pick a title without a regular writer. Or one that seems to be having a lot of personnel changes, because (in those cases) clearly the editor is looking around.”
Kavanagh–although he doesn’t read the majority of material himself, as noted above–remains one of the only markets (with Marvel Comics Presents) for stories that don’t feature mainline Marvel characters.
“I’m in a unique position,” he says, “because I’ve got these eight page stories. I can say to a writer, ‘Work on this story, take your time, make it the best you possibly can.’ And when it’s printed, it’s in a book with three other stories by writers with more experience. It’s not on its own.”
“The problem is,” said Kavanagh, “I don’t know if I would read a springboard and give someone an issue of Namor. It might be the greatest springboard in the world, but you don’t know how long it took the guy to write it. You don’t know whether he can actually produce the story.”
Everyone agrees on one thing: It’s difficult. As opposed to artwork which can be looked at in seconds, writing samples require much more concentration–and willingness to develop stories–than some editors may have the time and inclination to provide. Some editors, though, have indeed bought unsolicited manuscripts during their tenure at Marvel. (I won’t say which ones, since I’m reluctant to “target” any of them as the most likely sources.)
Submissions Editor Glenn Greenberg has held the position for over seven months. In that time, he has not found one purchasable submission.
However, that may very well be attributable to the fact that the vast majority do not follow the suggestions outlined in my column.
“Most of the time I get these three hundred page manuscripts, or screenplays,” said Greenberg, echoing Cavalieri’s words. “People send these huge fantasy novels. And when they do send things in the right format, either it’s only about characters they’ve created… or else it’s just, ‘Wolverine meets Sabretooth in the forest; they fight; Wolverine wins. The end.’ ”
So there you go, Rick. Now, of course, you might start claiming that all of the people I interviewed for this piece were lying to me. That none of them ever read anything that’s submitted cold. I’m not all-knowing. Sometimes I’m even gullible.
Tell you what.
You contact all those editors and tell them they’re full of it (although good luck if you had any subsequent plans to work for Marvel). And then, you can get write a piece for CBG and use your many years of experience to tell would-be writers what they really need to know, rather than the malarkey that myself and various editors have been feeding them.
My oh my. Where were you when I did “Ask the Self-Proclaimed Experts?”
(Peter David, writer of stuff, is going to beg all you fledging writers not to deluge with submissions the editors I interviewed for this piece… particularly the ones who said they read stuff themselves. Wait, oh, six months or so. But you can deluge Glenn right away. It’s okay. He likes it.
I also invite other companies’ editors to write to tell us how they handle submissions, so that Rick won’t have to have my opinions in this matter inflicted on him any more.)
• 
A lot of the time, I suspect “You can’t break in without knowing somebody” actually means “Writing is hard work, and I’m lazy. Where’s the shortcut?”
I did a study of 200+ novelists a while back, and this was one of the myths which was pretty thoroughly busted. http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/survey-results/#Networking
Was Rick ever heard from again? I wonder if he read this article and wrote back.
That’s a great look into the past and the early days of your career. I’m curious about one statistic you quoted though. For every acceptance you had 20 rejections. Assuming that’s somewhat accurate, was that 20 rejections of the same piece from other markets? Or that 1 in 20 pieces you wrote tended to be accepted by their targeted market?
A nice trip down memory lane as well as an education in how you evolved from aspiring writer to writing legend. I was amazed to read about the quote from the editor who didn’t think that “secretaries” should attempt to be writers. I have two words for him – Dorothy Fontana.
Well, those two words are quite as impressive as you seem to think. Yes, Fontana was a secretary, but she worked for Gene Roddenberry and I do believe that her first professional scripts were for a little project that her boss created (which would sort of support Rick’s theory that you have “to know someone” in order to break into writing).
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Your “two words” might have been a bit more impressive if they’d featured the name of a secretary for Marvel Comics who then broke into writing some of the company’s titles hirself (yes, the spelling is deliberate). I do think the editor’s comment was incredibly stupid but I would guess it came more from a sense of turf protecting than anything else. I mean, if a “mere” employee from the sales division can prove to be a not-so-bad writer, that employee might turn out to have further editorial aspirations (and a number of Marvel’s editors either came from the ranks of the writers or had spent time as writers).
I may be wrong, but I think Dorothy worked for Gene on The Lieutenant, his short-lived cop show, as well as on Trek. I’d have to look it up. It’ll take some doing, as I can’t find anything in the usual places.
I wonder if Rick ever read this article. Was he ever heard from again?
sorry about the duplicate comments. When my first comment didn’t appear right away I thought that it didn’t go through (whatever that means).
I remember from the collection how you met Rick’s brother or brothers and they weren’t mad asyou had feared, but had also the (then-) impressive distinction of flunking Freshman Orientation.
How could a fledging student accomplish THAT?!?
God, that’s right. I’d forgotten about. They said that I shouldn’t concern myself about Rick because he was so dumb, he had flunked Freshman orientation.
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Although I dunno. We’ve had so many editorial shifts on X-Factor he might wind up editing the book at some point.
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PAD
I can see the Line-up now, with no regard to logic or logistics: Shatterstar (the Liefeld look, Literally!), Maggott, X-Man (as written by Terry Kavenaugh), Moondragon, Jean Grey, Robocop, A box that has Simon Cowell’s critiques from all 9 years of idol played randomly when you hit a button, and G’Nort
Oh yeah, and Rick will change the title so that instead of X-Factor, he’ll call it League of X-traordinary Gentlepeoples
Well, I’m a bit ashamed to say that ever since I learned you’d been working in the sales department when you began writing, I did assume that that helped you in getting the editor’s attention. But I was never certain, and I don’t mind being corrected.
But it shouldn’t matter anyway, since Owsley never would’ve bought your stories if they weren’t good enough, not even if you were bestest friends. And I think it’s undeniable that your first few Spider-Man stories were INCREDIBLE. Back then, I actually knew some other people who read comic-books, and they were ALL blown away by the Blaze, and the Commuter, and of course, people are still talking about the Death Of Jean DeWolff today.
That’s the important thing– the quality of your writing. Knowing the right people means, at best, that an editor might actually read your story before rejecting it, but even that’s not guaranteed. It certainly won’t ever help you to sell a second story. It’s quality of the work, and other things, like meeting deadlines on time or not screaming at the editor when he makes changes, that is necessary for continued sales.
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Of course, none of this explains how all those obviously lousy writers continue to get work. Maybe their editors just have awful taste. Or maybe it’s those readers who keep buying it.
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I don’t know if my thoughts even matter much on this subject. I’ve only managed to sell a handfull of short stories in my life. (I’m not saying where they appeared, or what name appeared on them, so don’t bother asking. They’re very strange stories in a small magazine that didn’t pay much, and that’s all I’m saying.) I just sent my stories in blind, so clearly that does work, at least for some kinds of writing. They were all bought by the same editor, though, and once she was gone, that magazine didn’t buy any others. Maybe she’s the only one who ever liked my stuff. Oh, well. One fan is better than none.
Mary, in the old days, the editor’s job was to get each issue out each month on time, and that was difficult enough but they had to also for the big sellers, make sure they could get talent to commit to getting quality work in on time. Now, all they have to do is get talent or keep the talent happy, and if the final product stinks, who cares if the artist was hanging out till 3 and the deadline was 7, or the writer is busy making independent films and is best buds with the editor-in-chief, who really should have pushed and pushed and pushed for the finished work, but hey, must be the editor’s fault why that Black Cat book took so long or why Whilce Portacio doesn’t have to feel down about Wetworks #1 being so late because people are still waiting for issue 2 of that Daredevil/Bullseye book.
But then, what do I know, it may always be the editor’s fault
I am always amazed that people think because you work for a company in a different capacity, it gives you an ‘in’ as far as writing. In fact (and this principle applies to quite a number of other jobs as well), it often works against you, because A) some people can’t make the leap of logic that you could actually be good at two different things, and B) even if they did, they don’t want to lose a perfectly good office worker by allowing them to try their hand at a creative project. From a purely selfish perspective, Peter’s superior’s could have resisted his wishes because he was so good at what he was doing already.
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I’ve never had to go through the frustrating preocess of trying to sell my fiction, but I can say with certainty that it isn’t any easier from a non-fiction perspective. When I first naively tried to break into journalism, I quickly discovered that very few editors were willing to give you a break and fair enough, there’s no reason they should when fledgling (with an L) journalists were a dime a dozen. I finally realized the only way to get my foot in the door was to offer something they editor didn’t have. I made my first professional sale to Doctor Who Magazine of all places, by pitching them an interview with Dalek creator Terry Nation who was now living in America and with whom I’d struck up a friendship. And after pitching countless ideas to Starlog without success, I finally managed to get in after my wife got me an interview with Neil Gaiman as a birthday present- this was back in the days when Neil was just coming up as a writer and an interview with him was a hot commodity and that got me in to Starlog’s sister magazine, Comics Scene.
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But two decades, six books and about three thousand interviews later, it still doesn’t get any easier, especially with so many genre magazines biting the dust. One would think at this point in my career I could get at least get an editor to respond, but unless I have something fantastic to offer them, they just won’t want to know.
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Funnily enough, I remember having dinner with my former editor at Starlog a few years ago and he talked about the constant stream of pitches he got from aspiring journalists. At that point, he had a core group of 8-10 writers (myself included) that he would generally go to for 90% of his material. Why would he go with an untried writer to get an interview with X, he explained, when he knew that any one of us would get it done on time with a minimum of editing? And on the few occasions he took a gamble, that writer would invitably miss a deadline, hand in a Q&A transcript instead of an actual article or worst sin of all, sell those same quotes to somebody else at the same time. While I could certainly see his point and it was nice to finally be on the other side of the fence, I could see how difficult it was for a new writer to break in.
I was going to relate a story about the binder full of GI Joe stories I have and the note I got from Larry Hama, but that’s dull.
Instead, I’ll leave you with this.
Those who can, DO.
Those who can’t, TEACH.
Those who can’t but THINK they can, CRITICIZE.
Sean, you know, I’ve always had an issue with that quote you mention. Because if you can’t do something, how can you teach it? It doesn’t make sense to me. And I say this, as both a DO-er and a TEACH-er. I’ve done both, separately and simultaneously, and seriously – in my opinion, of course – if you can’t do, you really can’t teach.
Actually, I’ve always liked the line, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach gym.” Then again, I always hated my gym teachers, so…
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Seriously, I wouldn’t get too worked up about that famed quote. The guy who said it was H.L. Mencken, who also felt “…school teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole group of menial workers.” He also said that no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public” and “The only thing wrong with Communism is Communists, just like the only thing wrong with Christianity is Christians.” Mencken had some issues, is what I’m saying.
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PAD
Mind you, Mencken was also married to an English professor at one point (after famously citing marriage as ‘the end of hope’) which makes one wonder what discussions were like at the Mencken dinner table.
Jocelyn,
“Sean, you know, I’ve always had an issue with that quote you mention. Because if you can’t do something, how can you teach it?”
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Simple.
1.)You’re related to someone on the school board
2.) Your school’s standards are low
3.) You b.s. enough people that you know what you’re instructing until you reach tenure
4.)You’re protected by the teachers’ union
5.)You’re a nun in a Catholic School and virtually no one know or cares if you’re an idiot teaching, say, computer science because where you’re teaching hardly anyone knows any better, those who do and point out that they do are labeled insubordinate troublemakers and the diocese will back the nun anyway.
Seriously, how many stories have we seen over the years where the over 50% of teachers who are teaching certain subjects never majored in those subjects or even have a strong foundation in a related field? In some rural and urban districts the pool of applicants is less than stellar and they may have to pick someone who is merely below average in the subject they are applying to teach versus someone who is absolutely terrible.
Even in the more affluent districts, I have found competence to be a problem. About 6 years ago, I was invited to be a guest at a journalism class for the day at a very wealthy district’s high school. These kids had all the advantages you cold hope for. The teacher of the class was, I believe, an English major, which is NOT the same as journalism. I asked the class of about 25 ids to write short stories on what their leads would be if certain events happened. The who, what, where, when and whys. Only about TWO kids in the whole class gave me anything remotely resembling coherent, professional stories for the topics involved. Wondering if I caught them on a bad day, I checked to see the “cream of the crop” in that week’s school paper, which was even more abysmal. Bad grammar, spelling, paragraph structure and ability to convey the “nut” of the story and/or make it flow all flashed like neon lights throughout. This was a school that was in the midst of a huge school district controversy and whose girl’s basketball team was considered almost unbeatable and considered one of the best in the history of the whole state, yet if the overwhelming majority of these aspirants were asked by “The Scranton Times” to submit some “inside info” on both issues as a way of breaking in, they would be laughed out of the office after their first submission.
And Joycelyn, my sister-in-law does both as well.But I have found that the majority of people who can do certain professions well are doing them and those who don’t, won’t or can’t decide to devote their time to teaching the basics and theories in a classroom, rather than deal with the pressures of, say, running a business or performing brain surgery on a regular basis.
On the other hand, Jerome, let’s all hope that those who are teaching brain surgery can actually perform it well, rather than being inept and “settling” for teaching it.
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PAD
Oh, God, Peter… my crosswired brain jusr reminded me of John Varley’s “Overdrawn At The Memory Bank”, and the medic telling the eight-year-old to stop playing with that man’s brain, you’ll get grubby fingerprints on it…
And Buckaroo Banzai telling Jersey Zweibel “Don’t tug on that…”
The idea that by knowing people you can get a leg up, in general, is actually a good thing to keep in mind. I’ve gotten jobs by knowing people, I’ve gotten apartments by knowing people, and I’ve gotten hooked-up with gigs by knowing people. If there’s one skill that I’ve been able to develop over the years, it’s the skill of knowing people. I’ve never gotten a writing job by knowing someone. Even when attempting to milk connections, I get nothing. Likely because, in those cases, I’ve been focusing so much on milking the connections and not on actually doing the work to show that I’d be a good person to pursue. So it seems that it’s time to develop the skill of being consistent and reliable as a writer, which I’ve been putting off for years.
It kinda depends on who you know, Jasmine. I’ve made a couple of very small sales by knowing the editor of what I was writing for, or by knowing what they needed and getting it to them on time. With writing, it’s more a thing of knowing the market; if you’re drinking buddies with the publisher and try to sell him something that they don’t want, like an sf story to a mystery magazine, it won’t go.
I know of one instance where the publisher bought a novel because the author knew someone; “Hiero’s Journey”, by Sterling Lanier. Sterling worked for Chilton’s, whose main market was mechanic’s manuals. He’d written this great story, and no one wanted it, so he talked to his boss and sold him on publishing it. The sales in hardcover weren’t great, but the book got picked up in paper by Bantam, where it sold great guns.
Really, the best way to break into writing is by doing something so dámņ good that it sells. Or, in Fred Pohl’s case, because you’re the editor and have to fill pages with something… but even that’s no guarantee. “Ordinary People” sat in a slushpile for a year before a junior editor read it and passed it on to her boss. “Carrie” was delayed in purblication for a few months, because the ms was going around the Doubleday offices being read by everybody before the senior editor got it. Once it gets to a the right person, a good story usually gets bought, if there’s a way.
(I had the ill luck to submit something to Weird Tales back in the Nineties, just as they were preparing to cease publication. The editor liked my piece, but he’d bought three months in advance and had no money.)
Your point about being consistent and reliable is well-taken. A lot of beginners aren’t. Quite a few pros aren’t. Harlan Ellison springs to mind; he was 25 years past deadline on The Harlan Ellison Hornbook, but did finally deliver. I consider him an object lesson.
The flipside of Harlan is Don Westlake, who was so prolific that he sold his stuff under half a dozen pseudonyms. And Don wrote anything that he took a notion to; crime caper stuff, hardboiled detective stories, sf, westerns, pretty much anything except romances, and I’m not even sure about those. But the man turned out a novel a month, and as far as I know they all sold.
Writing is as much a passion as a vocation. You really have to be driven, which I’m not. Which is why I blog and comment, instead of writing.
Miles
Peter, how the hëll could Judy-Lynn Del Rey have hated “Knight Life”? I though it was hilarious, well-written, and delightful. And that was before I knew you were my Evil Twin. The very idea just makes my brain wobbly.
I guess it’s just a matter of an editor’s individual tastes. I dunno who was running Ace at the time, but he got lucky. I know I went through at least half a dozen copies before I stopped loaning them out. Which reminds me, I need to find another one, the covers are falling off…
No, people, I’m not sucking up. I was a fan of Peter’s writing long before coming here. I’ve read everything from Hemingway to this godawful story a woman sent to my agency about a vampire Elvis, some fifteen years before Charlaine Harris used it in the TruBlood novels. Point being, I’ve read good and bad, and Pete’s dámņ good.
And it’s one am Nashville time, and I’ve been rambling. Nighty night.
Miles