It's been 7 months, 3 submission status queries and no response/no dummy/nothing. Yup - IT'S BEEN LONG ENOUGH. I can now file my picture book dummy/manuscript submission, UGH!, officially under lost/rejected. It was a requested submission so I was assured it would be returned in my S.A.S.E. But I guess not. It takes 5 hours to make my dummies. Which is why I try and be careful where/to whom I'm subbing. But mistakes do happen. This is most frustrating. I hate that many book publishers have switched to this policy of only replying if they are interested. I preferred the form rejection note. At least they returned your work!On the otherhand it may not even be the publisher's fault. A friend of mine reported that a dummy, that he assumed had been trashed was returned to him by the postmaster with a note saying that it had separated from the envelope and they were sending it to the address on the business card pasted in the front of the book. The package had made it to his local postoffice, where the postal machines chewed up the envelope and spit the dummy out on the floor. Months later - the dummy was found and luckily they saw the business card pasted into the front of the dummy. Hurrah for the USPS for trying.
So what's there to do? Grumble grumble -some teeth nashing - vent & whine. I can't even have the satisfaction of OD-ing on chocolate as it's not even a real rejection. Oh well - I guess I'll just whip out the duplicate dummy and sub it to this place that still returns submissions via S.A.S.E. and hope nothing goes wrong. I'll take a clear cut rejection anyday over as I haven't received a reply I assume it's rejected.
