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Less Known Ways to Annoy Fiction Editors
There are some things we talk to new writers about all the time. Don’t send in your manuscript in a weird font. Don’t respond to rejections. Proofread. For the love of dependent clauses, proofread.
But there are a few lesser known ways to annoy editors that we don’t go over often enough, and as a writer and a slush reader…
Misspelling the Editor’s Name
There’s an editor out there named Sandra Ruttan. Poor woman gets so many submissions addressed to Sandra Rutan (because of Burt Rutan) that she had to put it in her submissions guidelines.
Everyone typos, but if you consistently misspell somebody’s name, which includes accents and the like, they’re going to start groaning when they see your name in the slush pile.
Spamming the Slush
Some markets have explicit limits on how often you can submit. I was guilty of this one once and learned my lesson.
Don’t offload your entire trunk on a market. Don’t send the next submission immediately. I typically wait 7 days after receiving a rejection before I submit again. Some markets request longer (typically ones that pay well and take multiple genres and, thus, get a lot of subs).