PUBLICATIONS|SUBMISSIONS|WRITING

Publications Are Picky Eaters

Don’t serve meat and potatoes when they actually want a salad

As a father of four beautiful daughters, dinners at our house were often a spectacle of culinary variations. Each child had their preference, and each often rebelled if mommy and daddy prepared something they absolutely hated. And though we shouldn’t have, as beleaguered parents, we often tried to appease their taste buds by creating different dishes we knew they’d eat.

Let me tell you right now, that didn’t last very long.

“What’s for dinner, daddy?”

“Liver and onions.”

“Uh, can I stay at Becky’s house tonight?”

“What are they having?”

“Pizza.”

“You realize it’s a weeknight, right?”

“Yeah, but they’re having pizza.”

“No, you can’t stay at Becky’s house tonight. Dinner will be ready in thirty minutes. If you don’t want to eat what your mother and I fix, then go to your room and do your homework.”

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

Sound familiar? See, what a lot of parents don’t want to admit is that we often train our children to be picky eaters by putting something on the table we know they’ll eat instead of forcing them to expand their culinary horizons and try new types of food.

We do the exact same thing here when we submit to a publication.

Publications are picky eaters. They have in their minds the exact look, feel, and message they want to “eat,” and Lord help the poor writer who serves them meat and potatoes when what they really want is a salad.

Unfortunately, a lot, hell most, of the publications don’t really tell you what they want to “eat”. Oh, they’ll post some kind of guideline generally steeped in ambiguity on their submissions page about what they look for in a story. They often tell us the appearance they expect to see, but they never come right out and honestly tell us their expectations of what kind of “food” they really want to “eat”.

Do they want simple fares such as mac and cheese and hot dogs, or are they looking for something more substantial such as Kobe beef braised with balsamic vinegar?

That’s the main issue here. Most of us really don’t know what they genuinely want or like. Here’s what happens. We submit something, and they tell us, “nope, don’t want that.”

We submit something different, and they say, “nope, don’t want that either.”

We then double down and serve up a seven-course feast with all the trimmings and for good measure throw in a dessert that took us almost three days to prepare.

“Nope, don’t want that either.”

So when we try to poll these picky eater publications to determine just what they want to “eat,” we often get a reply something to the effect of, “we’re looking for something unique and focused.”

Wait, what?

I just served you correctly prepared pufferfish on a bed of jasmine rice with steamed Brussel sprouts and artichoke hearts delicately marinated in a uniquely spicy hollandaise sauce, and you want something unique?

Really? I could have served you mac and cheese and probably gotten the same response.

Or a coney chili-cheese dog with mustard and onions.

The other issue with picky publications is that if they don’t want to “eat” what you prepared, you can’t send them to their room and tell them to do their homework. In fact, it’s the other way around. These picky publications get to tell us to go to our rooms and do our homework.

Homework such as browsing through their submission pages and reading what they like to “eat” at least a thousand times until we think we understand what they really want. We are then spending days, sometimes weeks, trying to prepare that “special” meal for them. When it’s done, when we’ve finally added the last touch of presentation flair, we set it down in front of them, step back and hold our breath in anticipation.

What we usually get is, “nope didn’t want that, but thanks for trying. Oh, and please try again.”

Oh, sweet Jesus, Mary mother of God!

I’m of the conclusion that none of the more picky publications will ever come right out and tell us exactly what they want to “eat”. Which means, all of us folks standing in the writer’s kitchen slaving over hot stoves and slicing our fingertips trying to filet a rainbow trout are being expected to hit a moving target.

A continuously moving target. What’s worse is that when we finally strike paydirt, when we ultimately serve up something the picky publication wants to “eat,” we, of course, try to replicate that meal.

To our complete dismay, we discover the publication has veered off on another culinary tangent, and we have to start all over again at square one.

I realize this piece is rife with analogies, but I believe you understand the point. Getting published in a picky publication is probably one of the most misunderstood and challenging things we writers do here.

It’s hard to know the precise moment a picky publication that’s been eating what you’ve been serving up suddenly chooses to change its tastes and head off in another direction.

But it happens all the time. A lot of times, we writers are serving them salads when they want sushi, and sushi when they want steak.

I’d be willing to bet money on this next statement.

There are a shit ton of writers here who’d rather create their fare and release it to the general population of readers than attempt to get their work highlighted in some of these three, four, and five-star restaurants.

Sometimes, you can get some delicious “food” from the street vendor on the corner.

Amiright?

Thank you so much for reading. You didn’t have to, but I’m certainly glad you did.

Let’s keep in touch: [email protected]