Re: unsolicited contributions

On Tue, 16 May 2000, Pat Sloane <patsloane[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
>
> On 05/16/2000, Robert A. Baron <rabaron[_at_]pipeline.com> wrote:
> >
> > What does it mean when a journal or newspaper says that "all
> > unsolicited contributions become the property of the journal"?
> > Are they saying that all such contributors cede the copyright of
> > their work to the journal. If so, nothing is spelled out in this
> > transaction; what are the terms, etc. Is this a valid contract
> > anyway? I see no "consideration" here except that the submission
> > is being "considered" <g> for publication. This kind of deal seems
> > to have nothing going for it. Does it mean that an author trying
> > to sell a story, can only submit it to one journal and then loses
> > his copyright? Or am I misunderstanding the meaning of the original
> > phrase?
>
> It means they won't return the physical submission, probably to save
> on mailing costs. So don't send your only copy, etc. In the exact
> phrasing you've used, it probably means they don't want unsolicited
> submissions, or certain kinds of unsolicited submissions. e.g, they
> don't want to be flooded with submissions of poems if they only print
> two poems a year. So they're trying to punish authors by saying, in
> effect, that even if they author includes a stamped, self-addressed
> envelope for the return of material, the publisher won't do the author
> the courtesy of sticking the material in the envelope and returning it.
>
> Publishers are notoriously inefficient, slow to make use of computers
> (except in the acocunting dept.), etc. They'll hold manuscripts an
> unreasonable amount of time without reading them (often over a year),
> mislay manuscripts in their possession, etc. And of course the kind
> of incivility noted above. The official explanation or rationalization
> is that the poor publisher is imposed on by bad authors who persist in
> sending too many manuscripts that the publisher doesn't want to see.
> This gratuitously demeaning "don't bother me" attitude shows a lack of
> sound business judgment that I relate to the much-noted inability of
> publishers to make money. Can you imagine an attorney setting up a
> hostile and derisive atmosphere designed to discourage prospective
> clients from consulting him about their cases... even though he might
> not want to take some of those cases?
>
> My point here, though, is that if one is close to the industry one
> hears stories that in my opinion provide a more reliable picture of
> why publishers by and large fortify themselves from outside contact in
> the way that they do. Example: some prankster typed up a well-known
> story by James Joyce and submitted it to a leading publisher as if
> it were his own (the prankster's) manuscript. An editor who should
> have recognized the Joyce material didn't, and rejected it as
> unpublishable. The publisher's response was to absolutely and
> entirely eliminate any direct submissions by authors, and to consider
> only material submitted by agents. Ostensibly, the agents are doing
> "quality control." Sounds to me more as if the purpose is to shield
> the editorial staff from being any further exposed as fools.
>
> The obvious question: why didn't the publisher fire the incompetent
> editor and get a better editor? They couldn't, because the pay is
> disgracefully low, and it's all a vicious circle as a dying industry
> goes down the tubes. Sounded for a while as if computers were going
> to be the salvation of authors, with a bright new day dawning. What
> turns me to a more jaundiced view is what I see on this list. The
> desktop-publishing crowd seems to be fired primarily by a near-maniacal
> insistence that no author ever be paid for writing anything under any
> circumstances. So we might be turning in one kind of sick and stupid
> publisher for another kind of sick and stupid publisher. Not exactly
> the kind of thing that leads to literary renaissances.

WOW. Given the blatant hostility you appear to have for publishers, perhaps the following won't even make a dent, but I'll try anyway.

We apparently concur that the disclaimer most commonly means publishers won't return the physical submission. However, I can think of several practical reasons publishers would make such a disclaimer. Consider the potential cost to the publisher in labor to keep track of and appropriately return all the submissions -- I would think it would require hiring at least one and perhaps several full-time employees to implement a reasonably effective "manuscript return" effort. At minimum (depending on where in the country the publisher is based) one full-time person's salary would be in the neighborhood of $20,000 - $30,000. In my opinion, it is a more reasonable request to ask the creator to send a (dispensable) copy.

Perhaps more important is the potential liability publishers may bear without such a disclaimer in the event a manuscript is not properly returned. I would not want to be held liable for someone else's property without expressly agreeing to take on that responsibility, and I can understand why a publisher (or for that matter, any business) would want to limit that liability.

Regards,
Marty

Marty Hayes
<9ball[_at_]hostsite.net> Received on Wed May 17 2000 - 13:58:21 GMT