Heres a cautionary tale for all poets submitting their work. Unfortunately, and completely unintentionally, Ive made a right cock-up of one of my submissions. Most editors, I find, ask for poems to be submitted in the body of an e-mail. Attachments are messy, time consuming, and could always contain malicious content. When I submit this way I prepare a Word document with all the poems I want to submit so I can simply copy and paste them into the e-mail. This also means I can keep a physical record of the submissions I make. A few weeks ago I sent two submissions on the same day, one to an on-line journal, and one to a print journal. Clearly without taking sufficient care I actually pasted the same poems into the body of each e-mail. Last week the on-line journal e-mailed me with an acceptance and subsequently published some of my work. Last night I received an acceptance from the print journal for one of the poems now published. To my horror I realised what Id done and this morning, after checking the e-mails I sent (they were from my office PC so I had to wait until I got into work) I e-mailed the editor of the print journal to tell him what happened and apologise. This was careless of me, but it wasnt intended to be a simultaneous submission which is clearly and explicitly contrary to the submission guidelines (which is often the case). I suppose I could have kept quiet and hoped nobody noticed but, apart for the dishonesty, would be an utterly reprehensible thing to do to the print journal which, rightly, has an excellent reputation for the quality of its publication. Its the right thing to do. I suppose these things happen, but I do feel very guilty about it. Im sure, however genuine the reason, the editor has spent a great deal of time coming to his decision and Ive, inadvertantly, mucked it up for him. Im rather anxious about his reply and goodness knows if hed ever consider my work again. Ill just have to wait and see. I guess the old adage if in doubt tell the truth is spot on.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 14:12:52 +0000