I'll let you have at this rejection because I don't even know where to begin: Dear Writer: First, please let us offer thanks for your patience and sincere apologies for the stupidly long delay in responding to your submissionto Swink Online. Various calamities and acts of the gods intervened, but after a one-year hiatus, we are back in the swing of things, with more editor-type folks and a shiny new format. We can accept only a fraction of the many, many submissions we receive each month, and we are sorry to say that your piece was not among them. But we thank you for your interest, and we hope you'll consider submitting to us again. Be sure to read our revised submission guidelines [http://www.swinkmag.com/guidelines2.html] before submitting. And please be assured that in the future we'll get back to you in much more timely fashion! With the launch of the new format and our expanded editorial team, we're working like mad to keep to a 90-day response time. Wish us luck, as we do you!Your pals,
The Editors
Swink Online Edition
12 comments:
Interesting about the Swink rejection. I submitted a piece to Swink February 1, 2007--just over a year ago--by snail mail. Followed up three times by email (in months 6, 8, and 10) to see if they would provide a status update or just a simple acknowledgment of the original submission. Total silence. I consider that submission "dead" at this point. But, man, if you make the effort to submit to a publication that says they invite submissions, doesn't it seem like you're entitled at least to a rejection letter? Still a fan of the magazine, but disappointed by their editorial process.
It makes me embarrassed to be a writer. My career is at the mercy of people like this?? I'm pathetic.
Yeah, also, um...they're not my pals.
And did I miss something or do they also like, not *pay* the people who create their content?
If so, what differentiates publication in Swink from publication on my friend's web site, or my own site for that matter? The mere fact that my friend and I are not part of the "in" crowd? True, most amateur web publications look horrible. But what if my friend and I are good web programmers and designers and can make a site that looks even better than swinkmag.com (or even better than the fiction pages at newyorker.com), does that count for anything?
Seriously, I mean, they might publish nice stories but how can it be considered a professional publication, how can publication in it be considered a good "credit," if you are not even recompensed for your work?
I mean, how can we call this a "career" if the act of publication does not even *pay*? Even token fees are a joke, really, if you consider writing a "career," don't you think? And am I the only one to observe that magazines have even gotten stingy about *contributor's copies*? What used to be 3-5 now is only 1-2, often with a "special discount rate" or "discount subscription rate" for those who appear in the journal.
Isn't it at the point where, even if you only have a following of like twelve people, that self-publishing your work with lulu.com will bring you more money than running after these journals? Or if you can write a halfway decent story and put it on your web site, and get traffic from your blog, can't you make more money from Google Ads than any of these journals?
I mean, this is really something to consider. Please, *think* about this, people! Even that supposed holy grail of writing, the New Yorker, is only paying a dollar a word. That's a few thousand bucks for your story, the most you can expect from anywhere. But I know plenty of people who make that much off Google Ads on their sites in a month.
Is it time to re-evaluate the "career" of writing?
Is this an old rejection or what? Swink seemed to die this past summer and I just looked at the site and it looks still dead. Also tried emailing them and the email's dead. Is Swink dead?
I'm beginning to wonder: Self-publish or perish?
Is Swink dead? Anyone?
Swink is presently alive and well.
The rejection above was mine and came in about five days ago.
I think they were officially dead for several months, maybe actually a year or so, but they got it back together, and they have risen like Phoenix once again.
Mail to Swink is bouncing as of today. Also the site is stuck on July 2007. I do hope they're back, though.
Dead as a doornail.
Not even the archives exist.
http://swinkmag.com/
Wow! So, what? They used their last dying breath to reject me on Feb 3rd? Sad.
Swink update? I think. The email is still dead but I could access their last issue and the archives and they have posted this message:
WE ARE WORKING ON IMPLEMENTING A SYSTEM THROUGH WHICH WE WILL BE ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS FOR THE PRINT ISSUE ONLINE. WHILE THIS IS GOING ON, WE WILL TEMPORARILY REFRAIN FROM ACCEPTING ANY SUBMISSIONS BY REGULAR MAIL. WE SUSPECT THIS HIATUS WILL LAST APPROXIMATELY TWO MONTHS. THANKS FOR YOUR COOPERATION AND UNDERSTANDING. FOR NOW, PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL SUBMISSIONS SENT VIA REGULAR MAIL WILL BE RETURNED UNREAD.
So, who knows? Anyone have any other current information? What I like about their guidelines is the no statute of limitations (as I call it) -no page limit. I would only submit to the print issue though as I agree with the earlier comments about publishing online.
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