I’m sorry I haven’t answer your email yet. Now you’re asking Why Don’t Agents and Editors Email Back?
Can I share my excuses first?
Here’s the problem. Writers write a lot. They send a lot of emails. Just sorting through those emails takes an enormous amount of time.
Also, this one: Editing is deeply relational. Relationships take a lot of time. I do my absolute best to email back, but sometimes it takes me weeks. The oldest email I have to still respond to is from 10/8. That’s you, William. I’m sorry. It was the last in a string of exchanges we had.
Every time I email someone, I get another email back–which expects a quick response.
Believe me, this is not the way I would prefer to work. I wish I had time to answer everyone promptly. But this month I’ve been in budget meetings and marketing meetings and strategy meetings about building readership. Sometimes we even have meetings about the meetings we’re going to have later. My calendar tells me that meetings mean “none of us is as dumb as all of us.” That’s funny in a cynical way, but most of these meetings are really important. They are about stewardship. They are many heads in the room so that we can make wise decisions.
Forget all of my excuses, though. Here’s the real problem.
Agents and editors need grace. We really do have your best interests at heart. We really want to see your work succeed. We really want to take you out for coffee and ramble away with you all afternoon until the sun goes down and we feel jittery from all of the caffeine.
But our desk phone is ringing. Our email is dinging. Twitter is buzzing on the cell phone. Our families are waiting at home even though the work day ended 30 minutes ago. We’re running as fast as we can.
Sure, the system is broken. Sure, we are broken too. The whole world is broken, but we’re doing the best we can.
{ 15 comments }
Thanks for this. I particularly liked your point about being relational!
This post was great to read. I really like how you've humanized editors here. I love that you want us to succeed. It was inspiring and encouraging.
good seeing your poem at tsp
Glad you enjoyed the poem, nAncy. As for humanizing editors, audra, I was
just sharing my own humanity. I sure wish everyone would do that more. I
guess it does presume that we all know how to do it–or that we're always
capable.
“Editing is deeply relational. Relationships take a lot of time.”
What a beautiful calling you have, Marcus. The difference between an editor with an eye for the person behind the words.. and those who will read them.
I didn't know you had a blog.. until I found you here.
Thanks, Bonnie. My blog is a playground where I can test things without
messing up entire sites. If I break it here, nobody has to buy it.
As a busy free lance writer a few years ago I was well aquainted with the burden of editors and agents. Problem is that in my small world, where each piece was birthed like a child, I expected anyone who read it to be gripped with each word
NOw I know better and wait months for news.
And we editors get all the blame too!
I've been told, “just write things down.”
Um. Yeah, right. I would spend all day writing and none of the day doing!
David
http://www.redletterbelievers.com
I, too, enjoyed the poem… and as I like to tell all the other type A's around me, you are only as busy as you let yourself be, and perceive yourself to be. I don't know what makes a great editor, but seeing that you care means you're a person of integrity. What more can you expect of yourself? take care Marcus!
cindy, oh dear. Does this mean I could be type A?
lol… I'm not qualified to answer that question… are you?
You sort of set me thinking in a new direction. After a number of efforts to find a publisher or agent who'd help bring the work to print, I became pretty disenchanted with the lot of them. Few, if any, even bothered to acknowledge you unless you were already published and wildly successful, or were famous or infamous, etc. In partial jest, I began to wonder if they didn't live in isolated, insulated castles surrounded by a deep, stagnated moat stocked with hungry, angry alligators and piranhas. You make me think I may change my thinking! Good job! ~donkimrey
Marcus,
I absolutely love email. I think sometimes that if I could only communicate through email that I would do it. I am too quick witted and my tongue too unbridled for my own good in face-to-face conversations.
I'll have to admit though that having your oldest email only be a month old is pretty good. I do respond to all my emails, but I have long since learned not to let my new mail message indicator rule my day … well almost learned it.
I do preview all my emails on a daily basis and respond to the ones that need to be responded to that day, but I leave the rest marked as unread. Each Friday I try to clear out my unread emails, but many times it is just too many.
The way I see it is that I previewed the email so if it is still sitting unread then it is not pressing, and if it is then the person will email me again.
I think that you are right about it coming down to relationships. As much as I love email, anything really important gets followed up by phone or face-to-face.
Brad
Hey, Marcus. I really appreciate the confession that the system itself is broken. I'm beginning to see the other side while I edit a magazine, although as a writer, well, sometimes the publishing game just isn't worth it.
Hey, Marcus. I really appreciate the confession that the system itself is broken. I'm beginning to see the other side while I edit a magazine, although as a writer, well, sometimes the publishing game just isn't worth it.
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