Or maybe not laziness. Perhaps I’m just too naive.
Every year, I trundle off to Chapters to pick up my copy of Writer’s Market. I flip through it, find the publishers currently accepting new, unagented writers specializing in fantasy, and send off my query letters.
Most are never returned. Those that do return, usually are clever form letters without even a date.
So this year, I took to the web to see who was really interested.
What the…a gambling publisher? But it says here in Writer’s Digest: Specializes in Fantasy (hmmm, maybe fantasy and gambling do go hand in hand).
Let’s look for the next one…crap. They’re closed.
All right, no need to get discouraged. How about you…oh, seems that they only accept submissions on the 3rd Friday of July. Well that won’t do.
Let’s see…10th entry — ah yes, what’s that fine print on their website say? Oh, seems that they only do comic books.
21st entry: Please, please, please don’t send us submissions. Writers Digest has it all wrong! We don’t even publish fiction.
So, fingers raw from typing, I look at my list.
Six.
Six publishers. The six biggies that no one has a hope in hell of getting to. You know the names: Tor, Daw, Wizards, Penguin, Putnam.
Meh.
Writer’s Digest sucks.