Writers can often be their worst enemies. I’m not sure if it’s particularly true of writers or just a truth of all humans, but it seems writers can often shut doors of opportunity without trying. I’ve been contemplating this ever since I sat down to talk to an editor about several of his tactics for keeping down the slush pile. One of my favorite of his rules actually took me aback when I first heard it. He said that he had a rule that if a writer responded negatively or unprofessionally to one of his rejection emails they were permanently banned from ever being published.
Harsh? Possibly, but the genius of it is that writers need to constantly remember they are professionals. They’re presenting themselves as someone who should be payed for their work and that means they should act like it. Unfortunately writers that I’ve seen in social media seem to swing to some kind of extreme when it comes to “professionalism.”
If you didn’t already know I’m launching a magazine. It’s actually part of my MFA internship in publishing. As a result, I’ve put out a call for submissions, which has gotten a lot of great responses, but there’s been a couple negative ones, specifically about the $3 reading fee and the fact that we’re not paying authors.
Now, there’s a lot of sense in what the people who are being negative are saying and I’m not going to argue their logic or passions. I can understand them. The problem I have is with their chosen method of discussing those negative responses. Like the editor I discussed earlier I’ve already placed a couple people on the permanently banned list. Why? Because they were unprofessional. Their responses were reactionary rather than being thought provoking. If they had changed their tone the conversation may have been very different.
It’s difficult, because I know writers are creative people which means they’re prone to ego, passion, and hot-headedness. That said, all writers (myself included) need to work to not be *that* guy. Who knows what bridge you may be burning… especially when the business plan for my magazine is to eventually to pay writers.
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