[neilmarr]

There's a difference, though, Jim, between carefully selecting several publishers and/or agents, having done basic research on what they want and what they don't, paying some attention to their guidlines and then making a simulataneous submission ... and blitzing every house you can find an address for with what amounts to spam.

The old landmail, hard copy submissions process on an individual exclusive offer basis could, indeed take years. It was soul destroying ... and darned exensive.

With easy, instant and simulataneous submissions now possible, most smaller houses accept with good grace that non-agented authors will mass sub. That's fair enough if they've sussed things out and are not wasting time by mis-targetting and subbing in unworkable form.

My own wee place, for instance, will gladly look at a synopsis and the first two chapters on this basis. I'm not sure how many others work like this, but when we request an entire manuscript on the basis of an initial sub (you're talking a lot of precious pro time at this stage), we get a tad more serious. Just a tad.

The pros and cons of a small indie are fully explained to the author, all questions invited, and we advise that only when s/he's satisfied that we may be the right house should the ms be sent. We ask for nothing in writing until we make a decision, of course, but we do ask for an informal virtual handshake that s/he'll stick with us if we can offer a contract after reaching a decision.

In the past ten years, we've never heard from a single author who thinks this is an unfair system. And in coming up 200 or so contracts now, I can recall only a couple of instances where an author has broken the gentleman's agreement and taken his book elsewhere ... both, by the way, after we'd spent many, many hours, not only on a full assessment read but after we'd freely provided a full professional copy edit, structural suggestions and a lengthy editorial report.

On both sides of the fence (actually we play in the same garden), the huge majority of folks tend to play fair and are a delight to work with.

Cheers. Neil