Full-On Rant
I wish I could say that I have started writing a new short story, or finished that issue of Gargoyle I'm looking at, or something of that nature. But I can't. In fact, I'm going to go to a friend's house and watch Bubba Hotep and eat pizza. I do have a rant though.
Writers who submit work via snail mail know the importance of checking the snail mailbox every day... you get ever-so-OCD about it (and if my roommate has ever wondered why I'm obsessive about the mail, this is why). So, today I visited the mailbox and I got an invoice from Poets & Writers and I'm MAD.
They recently sent me an offer. They send you a free issue, and then you write on the invoice "cancel" if you don't want the subscription after having perused the lovely and enlightening pages of the freebie. That's pretty simple. All right, so I sent it in, thinking it could be helpful for my endeavors, both in submitting work and having useful information for this blog.
Granted, I will likely subscribe. I'm a sucker that way. But the point is, they have sent me an invoice, and NO FREE ISSUE YET. I'm really annoyed that a freakin' bill beat my first issue to my mailbox.
Maybe I'm petty to rant and rave about this, but my plan is to sit on the bill -- I have a sneaking suspicion I'm going to get a past due bill before I get the magazine, or before I have had time to look at it if it DOES arrive in a timely manner, which so far, it hasn't. (I like how apparently they can hustle faster with a bill and not provide a magazine n a timely manner?) I would have been far less angry if I had gotten the magazine today in conjunction with the bill. If I do get some kind of "past-due" nonsense, I'm gonna get nasty with them. Don't make me an offer and then bill me without providing the goods. Jerks.
More love for the literary life, eh? Aspiring writers -- sometimes I wonder if it's a big market; in some ways it likely is, like the lottery, through market research theoretically you've gotta pay to win, though many of us aren't exactly flush with cash, given the whole emphasis on "aspiring."
Blast 'em!
Thanks for reading,
LLB
Writers who submit work via snail mail know the importance of checking the snail mailbox every day... you get ever-so-OCD about it (and if my roommate has ever wondered why I'm obsessive about the mail, this is why). So, today I visited the mailbox and I got an invoice from Poets & Writers and I'm MAD.
They recently sent me an offer. They send you a free issue, and then you write on the invoice "cancel" if you don't want the subscription after having perused the lovely and enlightening pages of the freebie. That's pretty simple. All right, so I sent it in, thinking it could be helpful for my endeavors, both in submitting work and having useful information for this blog.
Granted, I will likely subscribe. I'm a sucker that way. But the point is, they have sent me an invoice, and NO FREE ISSUE YET. I'm really annoyed that a freakin' bill beat my first issue to my mailbox.
Maybe I'm petty to rant and rave about this, but my plan is to sit on the bill -- I have a sneaking suspicion I'm going to get a past due bill before I get the magazine, or before I have had time to look at it if it DOES arrive in a timely manner, which so far, it hasn't. (I like how apparently they can hustle faster with a bill and not provide a magazine n a timely manner?) I would have been far less angry if I had gotten the magazine today in conjunction with the bill. If I do get some kind of "past-due" nonsense, I'm gonna get nasty with them. Don't make me an offer and then bill me without providing the goods. Jerks.
More love for the literary life, eh? Aspiring writers -- sometimes I wonder if it's a big market; in some ways it likely is, like the lottery, through market research theoretically you've gotta pay to win, though many of us aren't exactly flush with cash, given the whole emphasis on "aspiring."
Blast 'em!
Thanks for reading,
LLB
posted by LadyLitBlitzin at 5:26 PM
2 Comments:
I hate the junk mail onslaught after you cancel--The New Yorker and ArtNews are the worst, followed by Newsweek. Bulk for bulk, it's almost like having the subscription renewed. My favorite pieces of junk mail are the ones sent to us by the RNC (only rarely--I shudder to think how my name got on their list). You can take their postmarked envelope, fill it with pro-liberal literature and your best anti-Bush screed, and send it back to them on their dime!
However, my biggest pet peeve is having to register at news sites like the Post and the Sun and such. I know they want to track their readership, but I know as soon as I do I'm gonna get twenty e-mails about enhancing my erection 'cause they sold their mailing list to some yahoo out in Wisconsin.
It all makes me want to drive to the library and read the magazines and papers there instead.
Wow, that is NICE... I always just trash the political junk I get through snail mail and it never occurred to me I could rant back at 'em on their dime.... silly me!
Yeah, registering for all those sites really sucks but it's definitely the argument -- that they need to track readership to attract advertising so they can keep it free, yadda yadda... but I think I read that there is some service out there that gives out fake logins to people... for real... so that they can anonymously subscribe to all those sites. Unfortunately I don't remember what that service is called (and God knows what they charge for the sweetness of anonymity and a spam-free mailbox!)
The magazine did NOT arrive today, of course!
LLB
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