Since I had never sent a SQ before, I wasn’t sure how it was done. I took a few tips from the Verla Kay Message Board, and crafted a cover letter That looked something like this:
Dear Editor,
On (date)
_____ Under Consideration
_____ Not Yet Read
_____ Not received. Please Resend.
_____ Rejected on ___________
_____ Other: ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
Thank you very much for letting me know what is happening with _______.
I included an SASE. This can also be put on a SAS postcard, but I didn't have any postcards or postcard stamps in the house.
My SQ’s came back within 10 days! Both were marked “Not received. Please resend”. A bit of a bummer, but the manuscripts are back out there, hoping land on an editor’s desk soon.
9 comments:
Great idea, Rachel! In this day and age when so many publishers won't respond unless they are interested, you have no way of knowing whether they even received your manuscript. A status query is a professional way to attempt to find out what happened with your manuscript.
Now that you know they never received the mss, you can try again! Smart thinking!
Yes, I've seen these beforem but personally, I've never had to use them yet. Novel writing is a very slow process... Speaking of which... how is your novel coming along?
Thanks for asking, Sheri. I have not added anything to the novel since last week (naughty Rachel). I have been thinking about it a lot though, does that count?
Don't you hate that? I wonder where all these manuscripts are that never end up where they're supposed to go? The worst is when you get no reply to the status query...I have one manuscript going on 13 months, sent two status queries and still no word.
Absolutely that counts! You're percolating - a very important part to novel writing.
I sent a status query once (after nearly a year of waiting) and it came back "not received." So I sent the story again. A few days later, I got a form rejection in the mail. Frustrating business at times.
It's a good thing you sent those status queries or else you would never have known and then you would have been in for a longer wait.
That makes me wonder, what happend to the original copies you sent? Were they thrown out unopened, or do you chalk it up to poor postal service performance?
Isn't it nice to have Verla Kay's board for all those pesky questions? -- I've seen you around there, like your blog!
I'm still waiting on a status query for a PB exclusive...ugh, it's difficult to wait so long. Is there such a thing as a status query on the state of a status query??!
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