The Fatal Message

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Lightning Rod
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The Fatal Message

Post by Lightning Rod » March 3rd, 2005, 7:48 pm

Damn

I got the letter today from Creators Syndicate.

I had sent them my column for syndication.

These folks handle Molly Ivins and Pat Buchannan and many more.

"Regrettably, our editorial board has decided we are unable to distribute your material at this time. Please understand that this does not reflect on your talent but rather on our needs at the present."

Yeah, sure.

I'll just keep trying.
"These words don't make me a poet, these Eyes make me a poet."

The Poet's Eye

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jimboloco
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Post by jimboloco » March 8th, 2005, 11:41 am

Well, hell, ya need something like Guerrilla Tactics in the Job Market, man.
Whose yer agent?
Rubber duck?

My marketing skillz are ridiculous.
But do I want to print t-shirtz and bumper stickerz, or jig-zaw puzzlez?

Glad I gat a duh day job.
[color=darkcyan]i'm on a survival mission
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]

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Zlatko Waterman
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Post by Zlatko Waterman » March 8th, 2005, 2:17 pm

Dear LR:


You deserve a few words from a working artist-- words of consolation at this moment.

It is very hard to be rejected, and particularly by a syndicate or guild or agent who handles people you admire. Particularly if you have seen their work and some of them are not as good as you are.

I have been through this. I am tender about rejection, and have been rejected many times.

Oddly, even though I have known folks who tried a thousand times to enter something like THE NEW YORKER, I have also met folks who breezed in.

A little story about the inequities of rejection and acceptance.

When I was teaching at Moorpark College, close to the time abcrystcats was a student there, over 25 years ago, I knew a young student named Matt Mahurin.

Matt was a very talented photographer, and his work looked original, even for a young man's.

He was also an illustrator ( he later turned to movies and MTV videos). While I knew a dozen marvelous young artists rejected by big-time publications and agents hundreds of times, the VERY FIRST job Matt got while he was still in college was the cover and eight interior pages of TIME magazine.

http://www.sfjff.org/sfjff24/people/ind ... ctID=44351


Why did he get this job? His work was good, original, but most of all, he knew somebody.

Think about how you get music gigs. Maybe people hire you because they heard your cd and think it's marvelous.

But most of the time, it's because you or someone you know ( say your partner Barry) knows the person who owns the club, or the person who books for the club.

Joseph Heller worked for a publishing company and for McCalls magazine. He was an insider in the publishing biz. But it still took him twelve years to get CATCH-22 published, one of the most successful American novels of the 20th century.

Jerzey Kozinski, running an experiment for ESQUIRE, re-submitted his novel, "The Painted Bird", to nineteen publishers under another name different from his own. All the publishers, including the original publisher who had printed his book ( which won several prizes) rejected the manuscript. Virtually every one, including the book's original publisher, used a form rejection slip.

One last.

Ray Carver had only been able to publish his work in small literary magazines until his boyhood friend became a major publisher's editor.

His friend then asked for all Ray's work, pitched it frequently, and wore the gatekeepers down. Ray Carver finally got a chance to become Ray Carver.

Unfortunately, he died soon after.

Your work is keen-edged, snappy, accurate and well-crafted.

You probably simply don't fit an available "niche" at the moment in Creator's Syndicate.

Dan Piraro took years to achieve syndication, one of the most creative cartoonists in this country.

My consolation comes in the form of the little note above.

Your friend and fellow rejected writer/ artist,


Zlatko

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Lightning Rod
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Post by Lightning Rod » March 8th, 2005, 2:44 pm

it's odd, Z, that you should mention connections

I'm about to approach King Features and in preparation for that event I contacted my old friend Al Carrell. I met him because he and my father were associates in the tv business. Al has done a syndicated tv show and a print column for years. He is called The Super Handyman. He does household advice and tips. Sort of a masculine Hints from Heloise.

Anyway, he is syndicated by King Features and he has pointed me in the direction of a particular editor to whom I can write with his recommendation.

Of course King Features gets 5,000 submissions per year and they only choose 4 or 5. The odds aren't good. Maybe I should just save the postage money and go buy a lottery ticket. haha

I have found that what you say is true about who you know being more important than what you know.

Thanks for the encouragement, Z-ko
"These words don't make me a poet, these Eyes make me a poet."

The Poet's Eye

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jimboloco
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Post by jimboloco » March 8th, 2005, 5:35 pm

you should get it syndicated.
syncopated.
tap dancin
jive
goin nation wide, man.
poet's eye, live
on line
and satellite.
crystal shortwaves.
[color=darkcyan]i'm on a survival mission
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]

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