Re an anthology and why you should Keep your authors informed.

Timeline. Early February 2012 – I submit an original story to what sounds like an interesting anthology. Early November I thought I’d catch up on how the Rollicking Tales anthology was going, to find that it seemed to have vanished. I discovered a possible email address and queried. To be told by email from the editor, that:

“the anthology has not folded. I’ve been having trouble with the email address and webiste and my technical no how don’t seem to be up to sorting it out, though I hope to get them running again as soon as I can…I will inform everyone involved of any decision I come to as soon as it is made.”

Noting on Jan.15th that I’d heard nothing as yet I decided to check, to discover that a decision was made a week and a half earlier to dump the anthology, something that had not been communicated to me as promised in that earlier personal email.

I then sent an email that said more or less that: This was more in sorrow than in anger, but I’d lost almost a year with the submitted work and that isn’t useful. Things go wrong that may be unavoidable, but it always pays to keep people in touch with events. Not doing so, and leaving an author hanging for this length of time isn’t good either for the author or the editor’s reputation. I wish him well in other endeavours, but note that in view of this track record, I won’t be associated with any of them,

Email sent to the editor on January15 th and also posted to his site. Further developments have been that:I’ve received no reply or any form of response, and the post did not appear in the site, despite the editor continuing to post there. Colour me very very unimpressed.

 

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