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Friday, March 26, 2010

Reader, Can You Spare A Dime?

The handwritten note on this one says: "Some parts do show a mature style." It's signed by the ghostly "Reader" (my favorite). Jesus, really? That's all you got? That's what you can spare? Probably better to leave it as a form letter if you're going to be that stingy.  Maybe that's what you get when a publishing company calls itself the "Blah-Blah-Blah Corporation."  Remember the days when publishing companies seemed like cozy families: MacMillan & Sons, William Collins & Sons, G.P. Putnam's Sons, Harper & Row?  Well, all right, maybe that's a lot of sons, but you get my point. Media conglomerations (still mainly sons of bitches) do not a family make.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's been a habit of mine to cross out words like "material," "manuscript," "piece," and "story" in my rejection slips, and replace them with the word "genitals." Maybe I'm not right in the head, but it makes for much better reading.

NM said...

Remember the days...

Given Galaxy and If, that rejection slip is likely thirty or more years old.