A Rejection Written in Limmerick...

[Richard H. Fay]

..may appear rather unprofessional. It may seem amusing, but I am not amused.

[Lyn]

It would be worse if it's a form limerick!

[Richard H. Fay]

I believe it was. It looked like their standard rejection to me. After receiving the rejection in limerick, I seemed to recall receiving one just like it before.

[crystalwizard]

Suggest you send them nothing but limericks from now on, Richard. Evidently they like them.

[Richard H. Fay]

Apparently so.

It is tempting to send them some limericks, but limericks aren't really my thing. I'm more likely to send them nothing more, ever. Just because.

[erazmus]

Which might have been the objective. I'd send them bad limericks, which is the only kind I write anyways.

Mike

[Richard H. Fay]

Which might have been the objective. I'd send them bad limericks, which is the only kind I write anyways.

Mike

So you think they don't want the authors of works they reject to ever send them anything else, ever again? Because I do believe I received this exact same limerick before. The e-mail also had the look of a form response. Contrary to what some have hinted, this limerick seems to be their standard poetry rejection letter. It was their version of a form rejection, not something sent once on a whim.

They wouldn't end up with much if anything to publish poetry-wise if their objective is to turn off and turn away every poet whose works they reject. What, you're trying to suggest that some places reach a snap judgment on whether or not they would ever publish any of your work based on a single submission?

If that's the case, this field is more screwed up than I thought!

[erazmus]

I think I was saying that many places receive so much volume of submissions that they could care less how many people quit sending more. Trust me, they could respond with death threats and not deter some submitters, and more and more people throw their hat in the ring every week. I don't think many places honestly get too few submissions to fill their publications, ever. Too few quality submissions, too few on theme, in genre, readable submissions, certainly. But not enough coming in to choose from? Not very often.
I do think many pubs would welcome a decrease in submission volume, as long as the writers they actually like and publish stayed with them. Imagine how much easier it would be to get your magazine out if all you received were quality submissions of the exact type of material you wanted to put out in a volume low enough you could read every submission in a few days every month? Why, you'd have enough time to work with the authors you were selecting, your turn around times would be days, not months and you could actually take the time to be civil to everyone you corresponded with.

Mike

[Richard H. Fay]

Oh well, maybe it is a ploy to cut down on slush, although I doubt the place in question is one people are beating down the door to get into. Still, they may see any way to cut back on the slush as a good thing. Any way to make their jobs easier.

Of course, if they feel that way about it, why open the doors for unsolicited submissions in the first place??!! I'm sure they have enough friends, family, writerly colleagues, and regular contributors to fill up the slots in their publication.

[Rob K]

I think I was saying that many places receive so much volume of submissions that they could care less how many people quit sending more. Trust me, they could respond with death threats and not deter some submitters, and more and more people throw their hat in the ring every week. I don't think many places honestly get too few submissions to fill their publications, ever. Too few quality submissions, too few on theme, in genre, readable submissions, certainly. But not enough coming in to choose from? Not very often.
I do think many pubs would welcome a decrease in submission volume, as long as the writers they actually like and publish stayed with them. Imagine how much easier it would be to get your magazine out if all you received were quality submissions of the exact type of material you wanted to put out in a volume low enough you could read every submission in a few days every month? Why, you'd have enough time to work with the authors you were selecting, your turn around times would be days, not months and you could actually take the time to be civil to everyone you corresponded with.

Mike

That's why I live by the rules of reading some of the magazine's material and trying to match the magazine's guidelines. Although I can't buy every magazine out there, many of them are free--and I do buy quite a few, if only to see what's in the pages. While my style might be naturally different, I can alter it enough to where I think it might be a good fit. If it doesn't seem to be a good fit, I won't send it there because I don't want to waste my time or an editor's time. Now, I'm not trying to be some editor butt-kisser in the hope that they read this and give me extra attention the next time I submit. I'd rather they just judged my stories, because I feel my stories can get the job done. Rather, this is what I see as simple common sense when submitting. I could be wrong, but no one has proven me wrong yet.

On the thread topic, if someone sent me a rejection notice in limmerick, it probably wouldn't mean anything to me. I would assume they were trying to be cute or something. But we all respond differently to different things. In my case, I guess I wouldn't assume they were trying to get rid of me unless my poems were a poor match for the magazine--which I could judge for myself by reading their guidelines and other poems they've published.