Am I being ignored? Email response times of America? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2016, 07:04:00 pm
content: Hi guys,I'm trying to get something published. I contacted several places, one of them a major US magazine. With them nothing happened for a month, so I assumed they were either not interested or the mail ended up as SPAM. After a month however I got a response with instructions on how to submit, various details etc. So I followed these, sent in the preliminary article. No immediate response, after two weeks I got impatient, so I asked for a status update, nothing, after another week nothing again, and after that I got a reply that they are very busy at the moment with a flood of articles and I will be contacted soon with whether or not my article is of interest to them. So, I'm waiting...This is a reputable publisher, as such it would be nice if they took the article. However, this 1 month per mail attitude is appalling. I am not versed on the etiquete and the standard time it takes for this kind of industry to respond. I don't mind being told no. I don't mind being told yes. But being effectively in a limbo is infuriating.So, my question is: Am I being deliberately ignored? Or is the 1 month per mail an industry standard? If so, what the heck is wrong with them?Thanks,David

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2016, 07:09:30 pm
content: Surely it's not 1 month per email, it is one month to review the submitted content and generate a response. If you send something in, it goes to the bottom of a pile of work and it waits until it reaches the top of the pile when someone can look at it. Granted, an immediate email response acknowledging receipt would be nice, but you can't expect an immediate action on your submission.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2016, 07:12:07 pm
content: I understand that the actual consideration and work can take quite a lot of time, but at least answering an email asking how is it going would be nice.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2016, 07:23:31 pm
content: I am not a participant in the publishing industry so don't take my comments as authoritative. My observation as a voracious reader of a wide variety of periodicals is that the print publishing industry in the United States is failing rapidly, both in the newspaper and in the magazine world. The whole business model was always based on revenue from advertising and the internet has dramatically reduced that income stream. Only a tiny fraction of the magazines that used to be available to me are still available, and many of those are pale reflections of their past glory.You didn't mention to which "major US magazine" you submitted your article, but dozens of magazines and newspapers have failed over the last two decades. There are few electronics specialty magazines left, and I suspect those are hanging on by a thread. Which means there is almost no staff, and those (possibly single person) left are performing the functions of marketing, editing, layout, fulfillment and all the other work required to publish. It is not surprising that response times are slow, and unfortunately that will contribute to the further decline of this industry.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2016, 09:34:15 pm
content: I agree with CatalinaWOW. A large number of publications were shut down. There are only a few, very large publishers left. The magazines started a noticeable decline in the late 1990's, and were thoroughly damaged by the internet bubble burst.Things are so bad they don't seem to be able to afford calling every other day!Certain internet-based blog and forum sites likely don't help the situation.I can't claim their response times have gotten worse, but we are now all used to multiple rounds of exchanges per day on sites like this. The print media can't compete with that.