This December just keeps getting better :(
Some months ago I got echo about a call for stories for an anthology on SF. In the US. In English. I submitted one of mines and got back info that they were "considering including" my story.
Well, I thought, that was weird. Normal acceptance letter is worded much more audaciously. Not that I ever got one, mind you. Up until now, my score is 4:0 in favour of rejections.
A friend of mine, who's been luckier in publishing overseas, agreed with me that the wording is nothing to get too excited about. "Maybe they are just waiting if some better story shows up to take your place."
Weeks passed by. I've been getting e-mails from the editor. Asking for a few words on my profile. Inquiring after who did the translation of my story. (Nobody. I wrote it in English. Yes, us Europeans can be this advanced.) Demanding my exact byline for the Table of Contents. And things such.
But I never really got the real acceptance letter - and I was damn right in not letting my hopes go up.
Because today I got a letter saying that the publishing company brushed aside the anthology after their agent read first few stories. And that the editor in charge is trying to make a new contract with a new publishing company. And if that one decides the anthology is a bit too big market risk as well, "hey, my dears, don't worry, I have several others up my sleeve."
Well, that surprised me. In the initial call for stories, there was not a word about the fact that the anthology wasn't backed up by a publishing house. That the editor was just a single person with a fancy to collect stories and then try and make them in press. And that, in the end, the anthology might never see the light of day.
I think that's pretty mean. We have submitted our stories for free. There was no money in it for the authors. Now this fucking woman is sitting on our stories which could have been sent to other places where they had a chance to be published - and some even get paid for it.
It could have been my first publication in English.
But it seems that my share of good luck in this life expired a couple of years ago.