Hello, young lovers. As the sole proprietor of our submissions email, there are certain things that occur with sufficient frequency that I thought it might be helpful to address them in one place, and for all time! Do not fear that you, a beloved (and paid!) author for our site, are being subtweeted; dozens of people do these things, or don’t do them, and I forget about it immediately and hold no grudges, unless you are the subtweeted and disgraced writer mentioned below in #5.
Here are some thoughts on best possible practices:
1. Although I generally write back very quickly, and never consciously allow an email to be unanswered for more than three days, dear God, please do not poke me after 24 hours and ask if I got your email. I got it! I will be responding. If it’s been a week, please do feel free to check in, sometimes things do happen! In late January, a Gmail glitch disappeared a handful of my emails, and it has been helpful to receive queries on those.
Sometimes I confer with Mallory on pieces, and then it will be a little longer so we can discuss them together. I am never mad at writers when they get antsy and check in after three hours, especially first-timers, but it does really gum up the works. I think authors are sometimes just twitchy because we’ll have had a rapid-fire exchange of emails during the pitching process, but then when I receive the actual 1200 word submission, I set aside time two days later to sit and read it very carefully, and they worry I have forgotten them. I have days in which I receive literally fifty pitches, same-day turnaround is not to be expected, though it is often received.
1a. (This is Mallory.) I do not write back very quickly. I forget to check my email and then I’m ashamed of how much email there is and then I start to see follow-up emails from people whose first emails I still haven’t read and the subject lines are all things like “Just checking in…” or “Following up…” or “Wanted to make sure you got my first email…” I just wanted to take this opportunity to apologize. I have no plans to get better at this. I have no suggestions on how to fix this. (End Mallory transmission.)
1b. Mallory is not lying about this, and she never responds to my emails either, and we are like wyrd freakish sisters, so don’t be offended.
1c. (This is Mallory.) YOU SAID I WAS GETTING BETTER AT THAT
1d. You accepted praise and then backslid.
2. We have a marvelously healthy submissions folder! New, non-topical pieces are being scheduled into April/May, which is GREAT! It’s WILD. Yay, wonderful submissions. As a result, do not worry if your piece doesn’t run right away, or in a few weeks; I’ve just started telling new writers that they can expect it’ll be at least two months before it goes up. It is no commentary on the quality of your piece, it’s just, you know, if it’s about Jane Austen, she’s been dead a really long time and I’m gonna run that thing on the Olympics first. I am always happy to tell you the exact date your piece will run once it’s on the schedule (though sometimes things get pushed out), please just ask nicely. Also, if you would like your piece to tie in to a certain event (your book launch, a sporting event, your birthday, etc.) I am almost always able to accommodate such requests if they are given to me in a timely fashion.
3. (This one is obviously unreasonable.) In keeping with streamlining the process, normal pitching is best if you have not written the piece yet, because then I can tell you if it’s the sort of thing that interests me and if I already have a similar piece in the queue and provide suggestions on what I’d really like to see. If you HAVE written the piece, you just don’t know if we’ll be interested in the idea, go ahead and attach it or share the Google doc with me. It just adds unnecessary steps to the process if we have this sort of exchange:
Author: Any interest in a piece on [this cool idea?]
Me: Yes! That would be interesting.
Author: (immediately sends piece they have already written)
Me: I like it!
instead of
Author: Any interest in a piece on [this cool idea?] If so, I’ve attached it. If not, please have a lovely day.
Me: Thank you, I like it!
It sounds like this is a tiny thing, but it really makes a huge difference in my workload when it happens A BUNCH of times, and I would appreciate it.
3a. (ENTER MALLORY, STAGE RIGHT.) Don’t ask me what my email address is. It’s [email protected]. Don’t email me asking what kind of pieces we’re looking for. You tell me, dirtbag. Don’t ask me questions that we answer on the submissions page. It’s a very nice submissions page. We worked very hard on it. Don’t send me a promotional email about your book and then ask if we’d “like to run anything about it.” That’s not a pitch. If you would like to be interviewed about your book, you can ask us and we will say yes or no, depending on whether or not we like your book. If you’d like to pitch us a piece about your book, fling it along. Don’t just say “my book exists, do you feel like giving me a writeup,” because the answer is no, I do not, I would rather write jokes about teens and make Matt Lubchansky draw them for me. (I still love you. And I’m very excited and proud that you wrote a book. Exit Mallory, pursued by a bear.)
4. If you are pitching and have NOT written the piece yet, I’d love to see a clear, well-outlined paragraph about what you want to write your piece about, and either links to your previous writing, or a few paragraphs of the proposed piece. This is because it’s super awkward for me to have to say “I like your idea, but I literally have no idea if you’re a good writer, not everyone is, and I don’t want to waste your time spending 3 days writing something I won’t run.”
5. We recently had a dustup with an author who had signed her contract, written the piece, checked in to see when the piece would run, and then I saw a version of the same piece on another website that very week (I had said: “Hey, I like THIS part of the story, focus on that part and the other part can be an aside” and the other website ran her story the exact opposite way.) Do not do that, Nick will yell at you really scarily, and you will not be appearing on The Toast (or on the other website, again, because they do not like being part of such a thing.) Ask, always, if you have a question about that sort of thing, and I’ll be so happy to work with you.
5a. (Mallory lumbers out of the inchoate darkness) Related: we do not accept simultaneous submissions. Remember that submissions page I told you about? It says we don’t accept simultaneous submissions. Don’t send them to us. Don’t write emails to us that address us as “Dear Bustle” or “Dear Hairpin editors.” I’ll make fun of you on Twitter, which is the worst thing that can happen to a person.
6. If I have turned down three poetry submissions of yours in a row, there is no point in sending more. It may be that I think your poetry is good, it’s just clearly not working for our site in particular.
7. If you wrote me a “Gal Science” column, and your name is Molly, and you waived your fee (THANK YOU), can you email me? Yours was one of the emails lost in the late January glitch, and I have a mysterious note in my schedule that says: Gal Science – Molly (free) and literally no trace of it in my system.
8. You know how Mallory writes those amazing Texts From, soon to be available in bookstores near you? Don’t send me Texts From submissions. That’s her series. Generally, when I get pieces that say “I was inspired by Mallory’s…”, they almost never work, because we all want to be Mallory, but only Mallory is Mallory, and she is sufficient unto herself. You have so many beautiful ideas of your own, go with those instead!
8a. Sometimes I tell white men to stop pitching us for a while, because I can. You may approach when I grant you permission, but do not make eye contact. Bring a gift. Retreat quietly, with your head bowed, without turning your back to me. I can smell fear. I can also smell false bravado, and I will tear you to elegant shreds. (Mallory wrote this part and forgot to say it was her, so, um, don’t worry, white men, Nicole still loves you as unique individuals and tolerates you as a group.)
9. Here are a brief list of things we will almost never accept:
- Pieces about why you think a particular actress is overrated. We do not care.
- Pieces about Miley Cyrus.
- Pieces about Girls.
- Pieces from white people about people of colour.
- Pieces from straight people about queer people.
- Pieces about nostalgia for childhood books: we have Jaya Catches Up, and Mallory writes about it, and there are just so many many many of them, we’re not taking on more, and I get more pitches to write about YA than about anything else.
- Pieces that are about your child: Mallory and I have privacy concerns about it, and even if you change your kid’s name, they’re still immediately identifiable because….
10. We will only let authors use pseudonyms if they are survivors of abuse, face danger if their identity was known, or if they could lose their job. If you just feel embarrassed that you’re writing about Glee fanfiction, we ain’t going to help you hide that. Embrace your truth.
11. We don’t do formal trigger warnings, we will instead make sure the subject matter is apparent in the title so that people can choose to read or not accordingly.
12. The words “problematic,” “privileged,” and “-shaming” are on Mallory’s banned list. Which is not to say that we’re uninterested in posts about problems or shame or undeserved material/cultural comforts, we just want better, more specific words for these ideas.
13. If you’ve got questions about contract wording, or want permission to republish, or you’re wondering where your money is, email Nick ([email protected]).
Mallory and I are elegant, classy women and do not understand money or the niceties of copyrights. If Nick is slow and ponderous and fails to respond to you within a week, email me, and I will vigorously yank on the chain we have wrapped around his neck.
14. If your piece has been published elsewhere (again, even on your Tumblr), we cannot pay you for it. However, if you wish to waive payment, we are happy to consider publishing it.
15. There is only one space after a period.
16. Don’t pitch us on Twitter, that’s where I say weird shit about how Daniel Craig’s face would fit perfectly into your vulva like Pangea.
17. This piece will be linked from our submissions page so you can always find it.
18. Mallory also wants to see more pitches about moms.
***
I’m glad we’ve had such a lovely chat. I will be in the comments to answer any additional questions!
Tags: advice, gentle nudging from a canadian, housekeeping, meta, mycroft
Ahhhh I did this and checked in with Nicole to see when my piece would run because I have a hobgoblin in my brain that whispers malicious and false things to me constantly. I will show myself to the stockade.
#humblebrag
You know what my fear is, though? That not only will nobody like it, but that nobody will comment on it, and I will know what it means to feel shame. Although #10 might offer me a slight buffer between my meat feelings and my digital ones.
<size=”0″>Although I think a handful of people around here know who I really am.</size>
This is a generally supportive community, unless you’re asking to be a male lesbian or a piñata-shaped troll. You’ll be fine.
It was too much trouble to scroll to the end of this list on my phone. Besides, this is really a question anyone can chime in on with an answer. Since when, for fuck’s sake, is it ungrammatically correct to put two spaces after a period?
I remain, younger than Bill Murray, but not as funny; older than Gennifer Goodwin, if that’s her last name, yet not as cute chubby; same age as Donna Tartt, yet clearly not ss talented (or well-dressed), Mrs. Henry Winkler
I wish with all my heart that every publication in the universe would do this.
Seriously. It is so useful. Thank you, Editors!
Here for the dumbest and the smartest questions imaginable.
OK here’s one: where is the masthead?
On the right side of the page, look over there.
The box with the Toast logo & your names and roles? It doesn’t have email addresses, though, does it?
HAHAHA, this is me being a tool, we changed that and I forgot. Hang on, buster!
Ah, thanks – I thought maybe there was some new web definition of masthead and I was stuck in the 20thC.
The moms thing was sarcastic, yes? I asked about a mom post and was told y’all weren’t into such things.
We don’t take a ton, but sometimes!
I LOVE MOMS
Real question: does this mean you’re not keen on articles about not-great moms? I was thinking of doing a thing on borderline personality disorder, maybe, possibly . . .
Oh, I think the confusion here is that we do not want PARENTING pieces, but we like pieces about, like YOUR MOM. It originally said “mom jokes.”
Does toast have an official stance on team cat vs team doge?
Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever reacted poorly to you rejecting them and gotten huffy or rude? I think it’s awesome that you respond personally to submissions, but I feel like that has to open you up to more people having their feelings at you? Maybe I’m way off here.
Only once, I think! It was a poem, I declined it, she asked why I didn’t like it, I said something vague, and she said it was because I objected to its radical feminist content because of my own prejudices, and wanted to know “why your taste led you not to like my poem” and then Mallory made me stop engaging.
Okay even if you didn’t have “your own prejudices” in what universe would a radical feminist poem be perfect for The Toast? SOME PEOPLE.
Maybe if it was a radical feminist poem about Kids in the Hall…?
Mallory is wicked smart. I wish she’d been there to tell me to stop engaging in the terrible, pointless FB post argument I got into last week with an anti-vaxxer/friend of a friend.
(Seriously, I just kept saying to myself, “If only I can be more friendly and understanding, and keep writing logical, sciencey stuff, I will change her mind, I just know it!” Don’t let such idiocy happen to you, Toasties.”
It’s probably better to not acknowledge acceptance of a pitch, right? Just send in the completed piece after the go-ahead?
Girl, you can send me whatever you want, we have an existing relationship.
FLOODGATES OPENED!
(JK. A little.)
Sponsoring/dedicating posts? Where should those queries go?
Email me at nicole at the hyphen toast dot net!
I would like to take a moment to appreciate how nice you were when I sent you a near-totally-pointless email about my awesome smart friend who is not actively looking to pitch anything currently. You and Nick were both so nice! I get excessively fan-girlish over my awesome smart friends, sometimes.
My very great pleasure.
What if someone pitched something but hadn’t written it, and you said yes to the pitch, but when you received the actual piece.. didn’t like it anymore. Can that happen? (Is this a really dumb question?)
Oh, yeah, all the time! That’s how it goes, and why we do stuff on spec like web people instead of like print media.
Is there a limit to the amount of pitches we can send in? Will you choose at all relevant to the amount of pitches someone would send you?
Since I like the ideas to be a little fleshed out, probably just a max of three at a time. Not sure what the second question means?
Is there like…an expiration date on your interest in a pitch? Like maybe you expressed interest about a month ago and I still haven’t figured out how to make my piece exist? Are you automatically disinterested after a month of radio silence??
I am not! They never expire.
This was my question, except it was more like “Do you hate contributors who pitched something a month ago, but then they got the flu, pneumonia and like really really behind on their dissertation, but they swear to God they are still working on it and will give you a completed piece soon?”
I love when that happens! We are scheduling out really far ahead, there is no such thing as a deadline, if you said to me “I can have this done by August” and it’s not topical, I would be all “SOUNDS GREAT!”
Yay! I wish you were my dissertation chair!
I was also going to ask this question! I had this great idea, pitched it, and then immediately started packing to move from an apartment to a house and just have not had time. It was not the greatest planning on my part, but I’ve been nervous about pinging again just to say “Uhhh, I did a whoopsie with my time management, I’m still definitely going to do this!” So I’m glad someone else asked, because now I know.
How do you prefer to be addressed in a submission email?
Hi Nicole! is fine.
All right! Thank you. Sorry for the neurotic question.
I am happy to stop the To Whom It May Concern pitch openers!
Is it possible that you’ve misidentified which numbered item is about a subtweeted and disgraced writer? Because #5 seems to me like it’s possibly a better candidate for that than #4.
But I don’t know, maybe someone was a real jerk about not providing a sample of their writing.
CLEAR YOUR CACHE, it got fixed literally three minutes in, why do you want to embarrass us
I do not have a Twitter, but sometimes I wonder what I’m missing out on. The answer, of course, is this:
“Daniel Craig’s face would fit perfectly into your vulva like Pangea.”
Good God I love Daniel Craig. No one else understands.
There is a large cardboard cutout of him in the window of DC’s Spy Museum Gift Shop and I briefly considered breaking in to steal it (the gift shop was closed when I was passing).
Sounds to me like we’ve got a Toast field trip to arrange… DURING BUSINESS HOURS.
This is awesome, and useful, if I ever decide to motor on a 19th-century popular lady fiction piece. Hooray for transparent editors!
NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOO WHYYYYY
“15. There is only one space after a period.”
Though, to be fair, it’s not like I’m planning on ever pitching anything to y’all since I don’t write except for comments and stupid tweets, so.
I’ve given in and only do this now.
Same here. I think it was after someone pointed out that virtually all published books in English do this now. But I was sad to give it up.
Because we live in a world with computers and not typewriters or manual typesetters.
And because when I see 2 spaces after a period in a piece I’m editing, I automatically think, ‘the writer wasn’t sure what came next, so s/he hit the space bar too many times and forgot to fix it.”
Nah, it just means they’re old, and learned to type before a lot of fonts have sophisticated kerning.
Oh, typewriter class. You were so useful to me, back in the days when only sci-fi books and MegaCorps had computers.
I learned touch typing on an IBM Selectric, with indenting and double spaces and counting characters in your title to center and everything. NOT ASHAMED.
Although there are industries, some thriving, which mandate that all writing be done in Courier.
Typographically speaking it’s the Right Way for things typeset in proportionally-spaced fonts (which almost everything is).
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technolo…
I am 29 and I feel like I am the only one in my age cohort who still instinctually double spaces. I have no idea how I’ve managed to miss the memo, except I now work in a place where the style guide says we can only single space after a period. 🙁
It is instinctive! I just…physically can’t stop. I took too many typing classes growing up, all of which said the double tap was mandatory.
This is where find and replace is your friend! Just search for 2 consecutive spaces and replace them with a single space. Some of my co-authors do the double-space thing, so I automatically do this when revising.
I just recently trained myself out of it, so don’t feel bad!
Using one space after a period is like using “begs the question” to mean “begs that we ask the question” instead of “commits the logical fallacy of assuming the consequent”; I know that the march of time has rendered it ordinary if not mandatory, but I just can’t bring myself to do it, and I twitch just the tiniest bit whenever someone else does. And I have my reasons, but I know that nobody else is obliged to care about my reasons, so I don’t want to tell anyone they’re wrong, but I care about my reasons, and it makes it hard to change my ways.
In an indirect way, this is related for me to point 12, which echoes thoughts I have been expressing at length to my friends recently — we need specificity in our signs; language is for meaning things with.
I HATE MISUSE OF ‘BEGS THE QUESTION’ ALMOST AS MUCH AS I HATE DOUBLE SPACES
Maybe it would help to know that it was never correct in almost any modern typeface, so if you’re doing it on a non-typewriter keyboard, it’s not like something magically changed over the years—you were always doing it wrong. (Unless you regularly use Courier, which would probably only be true if you were a screenwriter, in which case you’re probably not producing large blocks of sentences anyway.)
Well, actually — if you really want to get into it —
For one thing, I am a playwright; Times New Roman has relatively recently become acceptable as a script typeface, but Courier is the standard. Playwrights produce many sentences together whenever they feel the need, because monologues have artistic uses. (Also, for the record, screenwriters are quite prone to putting sentences in large blocks together, because they spend a lot of time describing what things look like, and since short sentences are generally read as more dramatic than long ones, action descriptions tend to go: “A shot. A squeal of tires. A terrible crash comes from down the alley,” rather than, “A shot, and a squeal of tires, and a terrible crash from down the alley.”) So no, even if you believe that the double space is only applicable to monospace fonts, I have been quite correct in my spacing.
(Script-writers are also not the only people who regularly use Courier; if you select the “view source” option from your menu as you look at this page, you’ll see quite a lot of it. EDIT: Depending on your browser, you may not actually see Courier itself, but you will see a monospace font.)
The best actual defense of two spaces, however, is given here — the double space does not exist for reasons of typographical beauty; it exists for semantic reasons. Lines separate paragraphs; double spaces separate sentences. The ultimate point of any writing is to convey meaning clearly, in a manner which facilitates understanding, and to that end it’s useful to separate sentences clearly. You can tell me a double space is uglier; I will tell you it’s cleaner; we can glare at each other for a good long time.
There is also, of course, the third way. Which as a playwright I sometimes support! Whatever it takes to clearly convey the flow of the thought.
There’s also a fourth way! According to TeX (a typesetting program), there should be somewhere between one and two spaces after a sentence, depending on the font and on how much the line containing the space has been stretched or shrunk in order to justify it.
Of course, you have to jump through some hoops to get that, and I’ve never seen anyone who wasn’t a TeX user agree with it, but I think it’s an interesting way to blend clarity and aesthetics.
(Part of the usual justification for this is that it was once standard typesetting practice, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a reference supporting that.)
Interesting! I just read this, which seems to suggest that the “correct” number of spaces would vary wildly, depending on whether or not the font programmers knew what they were doing. (And some of them clearly don’t. If a font makes “born” and “bom” look identical, something is wrong with that font, and yet the default font on a word-processor I used as a kid did exactly that.)
But regardless, the encoding of these comments will flatten all our double spaces into singles, and I will go back with some relief to my nice page of Courier, where period-space might indicate that someone is punching. out. their words, but period-space-space signifies the end of a thought.
My boss-of-last-year instilled the double-space-after-period habit in me, but when I left for a less old-fashioned workplace I dropped it like hot garbage.
I didn’t even know it was bad until Mallory told me.
My boss uses it and I just quietly edit it out of all external documents. She either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t mind. Probably both, as she uses it inconsistently.
This one was a knife to the heart.
Et tu, Toast?
Brace yourself. Submissions are coming.
This is the best. I can vouch that if you mostly avoid all of these, your experience submitting to the toast will be easy, painless, and full of pleasant interaction. They are amazing.
I want to see a Texts From piece that is actually just texts from Mallory. I bet 1/3 mention witches.
Mallory once told me via text that I was “beautiful and strong like a valkyrie”
AND IT’S THE TRUTH.
Does Mallory’s desire to see more pitches about moms expand to elder female relatives in general? No particular reason…
Also, BLESS YOU BOTH FOREVER this is golden.
I like you guys so much that I read this whole thing despite having zero intention of ever submitting anything. Hearts.
One other thing? No, I have never discussed you with Mallory or Nicole. No, I don’t think they are snubbing you. I think you’re special. They think you’re special. Everyone is a snowflake. You’re all snowflakes. So stop asking me.
oh my god do people seriously ask you that
If you don’t tell us on Twitter, we won’t believe you. SNOWFLAKES, ALL OF US.
I also wanted to thank Nicole for being possibly the most awesome rejector around. Some editors really make you feel like turds for wanting to write for them. I swear Nicole’s rejections make my next pitches better, whether they’re for The Toast or anywhere else.
Yeah, I really appreciate that she takes the time to have a personal interaction with writers instead of sending a form response.
co-sign!
Oh, I really appreciate that, thank you! I try to be helpful with rejections, but I’m sure some people would prefer that I just be “no thanks!” instead of “here’s why this one won’t work for us,” so it’s tricky.
I can also vouch for the pleasantness of The Toast when submitting pieces!
Me too, and it makes me really happy!
I was so tempted to email something like this after reading it but I will just leave it as a comment instead of trolling your inbox.
To: [email protected],
From: Me
Subject: pitch
Hi Mallory,
Please RT this joke I think it’s funny
Sincerely,
Me
I’m really more of a hate-faver
Hi Mallory,
Just following up to see if you received my e-mail because I noticed I have not received an RT yet. I laughed at it for a good five minutes so I know it’s good and it’s perfect for your readers. I will check back with you later today. Have a nice day.
Regards,
Me
You’re a hate-faver?! Everything I love is a lie.
noooo no i’m totally joking! i would never hate fave, life is too short
Are initials accepted in lieu of a pseudonym? I ask for people who don’t quite fit into the category that allows pseudonyms but don’t have tolerant workplaces and do have a particularly scary ex we don’t want to be able to google us. Alternatively, is there a middle ground of like, first initial and last name?
I’m always fine with initials, and also, like, if you are an author with an established pen name, that’s cool, and trans people can do whatever they like! TRANS PRIVILEGE.
That is good to know!
I have never submitted anything for publication anywhere since the literary magazine in college accepted my short story about a cat, but I am now going to use this to formulate the greatest possible Toast piece ever.
It begins with a mom-scientist who has no strong feelings about Miley Cyrus, but is best friends with Daniel Craig.
I haven’t written any more of it, but is this something you’d be interested in publishing? You can see my comment history for a sample of my writing.
I will call it “Single Spaces After Periods (A Story Not About Menstruation)”
(it took me three minutes to stop laughing enough to type a reply. I don’t have anything coherent to say, just: hahahahahahaha)
If your login name is a reference to The 39 Steps I would like you to marry me.
Thank you for your interest in MacCrocodile and your recent submission “Marriage Proposal.” While we are always happy to receive submissions from young hopefuls such as yourself, we are currently unable to move forward with this particular piece at this time.
Keep up the good work! Good luck out there!
Re: 9, does that include fiction about people of color?
Depends! I don’t know!
If we want to follow up on a submission we haven’t heard back from, would you prefer us to reply to the original email, or send a new email?
Original!
MYCROFT U GIVIN ME LIFE RITE NOW
“I’ll make fun of you on Twitter, which is the worst thing that can happen to a person.” Mallory favorited two of my tweets and I treasure that, if she began making fun of me on twitter I would not handle it well.
ETA: Mallory is a hate-faver and now I have to take to the sea.
This is wonderfully helpful and extremely pleasant (except of course for the person getting raked over the coals in #5). Thank you guys for not only producing an awesome site, but valuing your writers and contributors, and actively making things easier and more pleasant for everyone involved. You guys do yeoman’s work to create all this, and I am so glad this website is a functional and enjoyable place to work with.
Also if Mallory made fun of me on twitter I would die and then at my funeral the eulogy would be Mallory reading the tweet over and over again, while everyone in the church laaaughed and laaaaaughed and my corpse crawled out to bury itself in the earth.
My paranoia is at such a fevered pitch that I went through this list and slowly lost my mind trying to think of times where I did any of those things.
BUT! Like Brook I can say from experience that pitching and writing for the Toast is more or less painless and also kinda fun.
That this was posted literally four hours after I submitted an essay is a gift from the universe to my anxiety-ridden self. THANK YOU, NICOLE!
I have just accepted your essay, it was lovely.
Not sure whether I’m more or less intimidated now. Probably…less.
Having just read your submissions page, I am now burning with the desire to know whether you would, in fact, accept a submission about the personal experiences of a reanimated Sylvia Plath.
try me, baby. only way to know!
I used to work for a small book publishing company that served a very specific niche market, and we actually really enjoyed the wildly inappropriate submissions we’d sometimes get. (Oh! Here’s a proposal for a book on the history of children’s backyard games — too bad we specialize in books on firearms, militaria, and various hard-core fighting arts.) Even so, I prided myself on writing a nice rejection letter and even received a couple of thank-you notes from authors we’d turned down. We learned that no matter how plainly you spell it out in your proposal guidelines, you’re still going to get things that have no place in your world. Good luck!
One word for you: Jarts. I’ll expect my contract via courier pigeon within the fortnight.
“Sometimes I tell white men to stop pitching us for a while, because I can. You may approach when I grant you permission, but do not make eye contact. Bring a gift. Retreat quietly, with your head bowed, without turning your back to me. I can smell fear. I can also smell false bravado, and I will tear you to elegant shreds.”
Yessssssssss. PS, totally stealing “elegant shreds.”
Is there like an appropriate amount of time that should pass in between pitches or submissions? So for hypothetical example, if an authoress was to have a piece accepted, and then think of a super excellent idea around 13 days later, would it be Too Soon to pitch it to The Toast even if she was super excited about it?
I usually tell people to wait until their post goes up to pitch again, if they ask me, but if they don’t ask and then just send it, sometimes I love it and take it right away.
What is an appropriate amount of time to wait between a rejection and pitching again (note: I have not yet pitched to the toast, but I also have never pitched anywhere in my life and I want to prepare myself)?
Immediately, if you want!
Can someone publish my book at a sporting event on my birthday so I can ask Nicole to publish my piece that day?
OH, and I think Mallory changed the last one to asking for posts about moms instead of the original “jokes about moms” but I don’t actually want parenting pieces! We’re fine with posts about YOUR mom, though.
i DID change it because i meant i wanted posts about moms in the way we have posts about dads but that wasn’t very clear sorrrryyy
You’ll be sorrier when I forward all the parenting pieces to you to deal with.
My hopes are crushed. Though, wait, what about pieces joking about nerdy parenting? Like this: http://quettandil.blogspot.com/2013/09/thats-not-…
Or this: http://quettandil.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-danger…
(But… longer.)
Can you say more about that? It just so happens that I really like to write about my mom.
I am a two-space period person working in a one-space office, so let me just whisper these words to my sistren: “global find-and-replace.” No one ever needs to know.
[sigh] I guess. I just…I just hate to give in, you know??
Random Reactions In Order (I) a.) “Oh God. Author IS subtweeting me. Shame, fear, sweatiness. b.)Don’t poke, don’t poke. NEVER poke. Hides hands behind back c.) Writers are squirming, inbred puppies with car sickness; d.) Please provide illustration of Ms. Mallory Lurking In The Inchoate Darkness; e.) Please provide same of Ms. Mallory Yanking Chain of Slow and Ponderous Toast Publisher; f.) YAY! I know what “pitch” means now! g.) Is that a picture of Sherlock’s brother Mycroft at end?
Never mind g.). Tag to Mycroft at end suggests answer is “YES.”
“Daniel Craig’s face would fit perfectly into your vulva like Pangea”
Please, let’s discuss this more. Yes? YES!
In my half-awake pillow-smothered state this morning, I was planning out some kind of pitch about… cat doulas? So with this sign from the universe, I will start writing that up right away. Cat doulas are the new miniature horses, maybe?
This is SO useful, and thanks especially for giving me a sense of how things work on your end, because content providers (i.e., me) don’t know shit about what happens once our work is in the cosmic queue. I was reading something by the guy who draws Dilbert the other day and it was the first time I didn’t imagine the comics in my specific copy of the paper being hand-inked and lettered before the whole thing was rolled up and thrown in my yard. Always helps to get my head out of the clouds or my navel, and I will pitch with attachment or propose the as-yet-unwritten henceforward in my travels.
This is all pretty awesome advice for the care and feeding of editors, generally.
ZOMG, double-submitting. (exits screaming)
And pursued by bear, of course. Never forget. Always exit pursued by bear.
Okay. I recognize that I’m late to this party but on a (really crucial) side-note: I really hate the word problematic. If it were not extremely problematic to do so, I would pitch something about how much I find that word problematic immediately. It expresses absolutely nothing. It makes me want to scream. What it actually means is “I find this thing sort of gross but I don’t know what’s gross about it at all and I don’t know if it’s racist or sexist or what-ist so I’ll just say the p word and hope that’ll show everyone I’m one of the good ones”.
I’m done now. I’m sorry I really didn’t expect to have a paragraph of feelings on this. I originally just wanted to comment to say the toast is remarkably always free of this word. How splendid.
You posted this a year ago but I wanted to give you a high-five.
They left your five hanging for a year, so I’m going to complete it. High five!
hHHHHOW
might a gal submit her ART TALENTS for consideration– would you prefer artists approach with a pitch for a specific piece?
For art, I have to see it to know, so sending me a cartoon you would like us to run works, or sending me a bunch of your already-published cartoons with an idea for one you would do for us works too. I really love art submissions, they brighten my day immensely.
Me too, and it makes me really happy!
Mallory is wicked smart. I wish she'd been there to tell me to stop engaging in the terrible, pointless FB post argument I got into last week with an anti-vaxxer/friend of a friend.
(Seriously, I just kept saying to myself, "If only I can be more friendly and understanding, and keep writing logical, sciencey stuff, I will change her mind, I just know it!" Don't let such idiocy happen to you, Toasties."
I learned touch typing on an IBM Selectric, with indenting and double spaces and counting characters in your title to center and everything. NOT ASHAMED.
“You tell me, dirtbag,” is a thing I’m going to try to say a lot now.
I was also going to ask this question! I had this great idea, pitched it, and then immediately started packing to move from an apartment to a house and just have not had time. It was not the greatest planning on my part, but I've been nervous about pinging again just to say "Uhhh, I did a whoopsie with my time management, I'm still definitely going to do this!" So I'm glad someone else asked, because now I know.
Mallory’s Mycroft. Amaright?
Mallory's Mycroft. Amaright?
Till now I thought Vice Magazine had the wittiest submission guidelines I’d ever read but this is way, way better. On an unrelated note I submitted something that’s approximately 1,390 words to you guys, is that too long? I’m a little unclear on the word count restrictions.
I can’t tell if #18 is sarcasm or not.
Signed,
A Mom.
I feel I must pitch something to this site after reading this post … mainly because the pure honesty in “we all want to be Mallory [or insert anyone else whose voice we like; I happen to really like Nicole’s]” and the pics. Hrmmm… what can I come up? Mwahahaha.
I’ve just read the entire submissions page without my glasses, I must admit that it was quite brave of me. After which I also read each and every comment below it (another brave move on my part). I am grateful for your advice and guidance and would like to say thank you in advance, I look forward to working with you.
I am unsure if this has already been addressed in the comments are not, but IF we remove a post from our personal blog AND rewrite it (expanding it considerably, changing language, etc.), would you then be able to pay and/or publish that submission (if it's worthy, of course)? Or does it still count as being previously published?