Death by Publishing
A few days ago, I was submitting one of my old manuscripts to some small press publishers — basically setting up the next round of rejections. As I looked through their rules and standards, I noticed something really strange at the bottom of the last section:
That’s odd, right? I’ve been dealing with the publishing industry for running on a decade, and I’ve never seen anyone list a suicide prevention number on a submission page.
There are a a few possible reckonings here. It was likely just added in as a self-congratulatory bit of back patting during Suicide Prevention Month and no one took it down. That’s the most sensible explanation.
I’m not in a sensible mood today, though. Increasingly, “sensibility” seems to me like a tool used by the powerful to prevent the powerless for wielding their only true source of influence. So I’m going to wildly speculate instead.
People in this industry are accustomed to dealing with high-strung, emotionally delicate people who’ve been lied to about life since early childhood and lied to about their chances of success by people in the industry since they decided to become Real Writers. These are people who’ve been taught to view…
