No one knows what it's like... Yeah, that was a great song by The Who. Behind Bue Eyes. Well, I don't have blue eyes. They're green. And a lot of people, actually, do know what it's like. But I'm not talking about eyes. And I'm not talking about "bad" guys, either. I'm talking about writers. They know what it's like to be waiting on a submission.
The funny thing about exclusive submissions is that they make sense and they don't make sense. They make sense because you gotta understand where a publisher is coming from when they are reviewing a manuscript. They don't want to take several weeks deciding whether they will publish it or not, and then, right when they're on the verge of going for it, they get a call from the author saying, "Uhm, you know that manuscript I sent you? Well, I just signed a contract with another publisher."
But on the other side of the coin, exclusive submissions don't make sense. Not for the writer, anyway, because his or her manuscript is being held up for what, a month, two months, sometimes three months, and even up to four. And if that publisher at the end of those months decides, "Naahh... it's not for us..." then damn, all those months are wasted. And yeah, completely wasted. You can't get that time back. All those months you could have been submitting to several other publishers, one of whom may have actually decided to accept it. But because it was held up with someone else instead... someone who didn't want it afterall, it didn't happen.
It's true. For writers, it just doesn't make sense. Agreeing to exclusive submissions could take several years to find a publisher at that rate. Whereas, mulitple submissions might have found a publisher in a fraction of that time.
So when a reputable publisher asks for an exclusive submission, what do you say? You say yes. That's what you say!
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