Wednesday, August 01, 2012

The Manuscript is Back

My Personas poetry collection/chapbook is now back in my hands. It got booted out of the contest I submitted it to in the first quarterfinal round. I kind of had a feeling it wouldn't make it since the publisher running the contest decided it would be a good idea to tweet the decision process over the last couple of weeks. Any time they made a comment about something being wrong with one of the submissions, I just assumed it was mine. Narcissistic? Yes. Helpful? Maybe. I did like this turn of events because I think it let me down gently, but in a more general sense it probably wasn't a good move. Even if the comments in no way pertained to my entry, it did pertain to someone's entry. It felt a little voyeuristic to be able to know that an entry was dismissed before the actual author found out, unless they were stalking around like me.

Now I'm not sure what I want to do with the manuscript. I had previously decided if this contest didn't pan out, I would self publish. I think I may hold that idea off for a little longer and try to submit more of the poems individually to publications. Tuesday Morning Hangover was part of the original longer draft of Personas, and someone decided they liked it, so maybe it's the bundling that is the issue. I think I'll send them out for a another round and see what happens.

2 comments:

Avery Smithkin said...

You can do both - prepare your manuscript for self-publishing and send some out. If they get published before you self-publish, just add a line "previously published in (name of book, web site, etc. )" If you end up self-publishing first, send a notice to those you've submitted letting them know.

With the lack of interest in poetry by many publishers, I'm looking at the self-publishing option myself.

Good luck with whichever way you go!

Terri said...

Yeah, I was heading toward doing both. I'm still looking for a few more sparks of inspiration to fill out a full-length manuscript, but the process is well underway.

Good luck in your poetry endeavors as well!