In October, I sent off a submission to an education magazine after reading their upcoming issue themes from their website. It’s a topic I know a lot about and write a lot about (my day job, in other words).
I called the editor, before submitting, to narrow my topic focus. We had a wonderful conversation as she mistakenly thought I was someone else and answered the phone with –not hell0–but “What do you want now?” I capitalized on this error (hey, we’re all human), and frankly it helped me get over those editor jitters in my gut. One thing was for sure after that–she wasn’t going to forget me after our laugh and conversation.
So, after I sent off the submission, I didn’t hear anything at all back from her. In talking to her, I gleaned that she acknowledged submissions, even ones she rejected. But being the polite midwestern girl I am, I didn’t want to call again and say ..hey…did you get the emailed submission? I held myself in check for as long as I could handle and over a month later (but before her publishing deadline of January) sent her a nice followup note just to make sure she’d received it.
She hadn’t. I just knew it. But even cooler, she invited me to resend (long after the deadline) the article, which I did promptly, and she assured me it would be read by the editorial board and considered for publication in the Spring issue.
I’m still waiting to hear back but the lesson is this: if you’ve got something nagging your writer’s brain, listen to it. Caveat: don’t use this as an excuse to be a pest to every editor you submit to. To harass the editors is to commit career suicide. But if there’s just something whispering in the back of your mind that something isn’t right, trust yourself. Be courteous, be professional and be sure to keep trying.
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