Tuesday, April 7, 2009

An Ugly Trend

This is one of my rants so beware.

I have been extremely frustrated lately with the new attitude of just not getting back to people. I know we are all busy, but the silent treatment just doesn't work for me. We all have email, phones, twitter, and yes, even snail mail. Use it! Respond to people when they talk to you.

I see this everywhere. When something happens around the house and I need a contractor, I will frequently call several. I don't just do this to check on the price, although that is a factor. I do this because I know 90% of the time, people just don't call me back. When we were painting our house, several years ago, I called 8 painters. Only one called back and guess who got the job. Now frankly, I have no idea how people stay in business with this approach.

As writers, I understand how frustrated you get when you send out a submission and hear nothing back. You send post cards to remind them, and yet, you hear nothing. There is simply no excuse for not getting a response of some sort (and no, I don't want to hear I'm busy). I am talking about a real response.

As an agent, this is something I try REALLY hard to do. If I have missed some of you, when you have emailed and asked, I try to remedy the situation. I am calling for all the editors and agents out there to do the same thing.

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