4 Things To Do When Anxiously Waiting For An Editor To Review Your Story
By: Ryan Fan
Tags: Freelancing, Humor, Business, Writing, Satire

4 Things To Do When Anxiously Waiting For An Editor To Review Your Story

Spam the editor’s email every day.

Photo by BBH Singapore on Unsplash

Waiting for an editor to review your story is a frustrating process. Who do they think they are to make you wait so long, or even to tell you that your story isn’t good enough for publication?

It really sucks that an editor is waiting several weeks to take a look at your piece, so here are a couple of things you can do while you’re anxiously waiting for them to inform you whether or not you’re a human being that deserves to exist in this world:

1. Spam the editor’s email every day

To expedite the submission process, be sure to email the editor every day and ask, “Have you seen my story?” Eventually, once you start to not receive any responses, start adding more question marks to your emails. Attach, in all caps, a “TIME SENSITIVE” subject line to ensure they make your story a priority.

If they still don’t respond, start upping the frequency of emails — instead of emailing them once a day, email them ​several​ times a day and threaten to pull your story from their publication because they’re taking too long. Since you know your story is good and you can do perfectly fine without an editor’s approval and validation, keep making these threats so the editor understands what they’re missing out on.

2. Pitch your story to as many publications as possible

If one publication editor is taking way too long to get to your submission, start pitching to as many other publications as possible. It doesn’t matter if the interests and goals of said publication don’t align with the content of your story. You just want to have other options on the table to spite the editor who hasn’t gotten to your story for two ENTIRE days.

Completely neglect the fact that editors have lives. The moment they make you wait more than an hour, send them all the same spammy follow-up emails you sent to your initial editor. They aren’t looking at your piece because they’re impolite, rude, don’t respect you, and don’t respect your writing, so send the message that you don’t respect their “editing” skills either.

The moment that a publication expresses interest in your story, though, jump at the opportunity of the first editor that showed you attention, even if the editor just skimmed and barely read over your piece after being overwhelmed by submissions and trying to clear the queue.

3. Find the editor on as many social media platforms as possible and annoy them

To get your editor’s attention, find their Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and ideally their phone number. Don’t stop. Be relentless. Hustle for your editor’s attention, and show them that you aren’t going to stop until they pay you the attention you deserve.

Especially make sure to find your editor on LinkedIn so they know that you’re a professional. Once they see you well-groomed, in a suit, they couldn’t possibly resist accepting your submission and glamorizing your writing. When they accept your Facebook request because it’s not like they accept everyone’s Facebook request, make sure they see that you’re a starving writer in desperate need of the commission needed when they accept your pitch.

4. Complain about the editor’s non-responsiveness and slander them on social media

When your editor has finally made you wait three days for your story, that’s crossing a line. Badmouth them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even LinkedIn. You don’t only need to slander the editor, but slander the whole publication for a lack of responsiveness and professionalism to your superb writing. Relish in the echo chamber of people agreeing that the editor and publication suck and that you deserve to be treated better — that you don’t even need the publication!