Going Digital On Everything - A Cautionary Tale

This post is not about e-books, but more of a cautionary tale about how we all rely so heavily on doing things online and in a digital format. I know that some of you are already telling yourself, "this won't happen to me." Let me just say, you probably cursed yourself.

Let me start with the most basic level and that involves your manuscript. For about 15 years, I taught research writing at a couple of local colleges. I would always tell students to save their research frequently and to save it to several locations. I would often tell them to even consider keeping a hard copy. Of course there were many who believed they could ignore the advice and sure enough, I would have someone who would lose all of the research due to a glitch of some sort.

I told you so...

Now, if you are someone who were tracking Greyhaus on July 31, you would know what happened. For some reason, some people who had submitted projects to me from my website never had the work show up on my end. Who knows what happened? All I know is I had some emails that showed up that were sent in October, 2023. No, these were not in SPAM. These showed up like normal new emails, but it was the timestamp in the email that showed the mistake. 

I reached out to my server and they had no idea on their end. They must have found something because within 10 minutes of my call to them, my inbox started filling, and filling FAST! Submissions from October 2023 and for the next several months. (Oh, you don't want to know the words coming out of my mouth).

I had trusted the system. I had no reason to not believe it since some of the other projects during that time did make it. 

But here is the lesson you should learn from all of this...

I post frequently on social media and publicly that I answer EVERY submission that comes in. OK, I will tell you there are some that are clearly Phishing scams and some people who I have told never to submit again who continue and I delete their emails, but for everyone else, I will answer. I also state I will answer within 3 months.

I have always stated that I do not believe in the "no answer means a no approach." I know some say things such as "with the amount of submissions I get, I will only answer those I am interested in." Personally, I think this is wrong. I get people applying for a job that has 1000's of people applying, but we are not talking about these numbers. So, I answer.

And yet, I had several authors write back who did not pay attention to my messages about responding. They did not hear back so "assumed I did not want their story." Instead of emailing me and asking about it, they chose to "self-publish". Based on their email, they are regretting that decision. I feel for them!

So, when you send an email to an editor or an agent, DO NOT trust going digital. There is a chance that email never made it. You have all had that probably happen to you when you find Gramma Eunice's email ended up in SPAM. Even published authors who have a great working relationship with their editors run into this. Always check. Don't just assume!