Hearing these stories makes my blood boil. It reminds me of the Willie Nelson song, "Write your own Song." Anyone familiar with it and where he says they can put their changes in his songs?? Maybe that's what we should tell some of the publishers.

I submitted some stories to a publisher of religious books. The publisher sent me an email saying they wanted the stories and the word count was correct, but the stories would first go to the editors.

An editor emailed the stories back saying all of the proposed changes were in red and I should sign off on what I had received. The problem was there were only a couple of things in red and there were several changes in the black and white copy that were unmarked. The changes were not in my writing style and one was a grammatic error.

I was so infuriated that I wrote the publisher and without explanation said I was withdrawing the stories. The publisher called me and when I revealed what had happened I was told the editor was new. They apoligized and asked that I authorize publication of the stories as I had originally written them.

As I'm sure you know, the money in short stories is not worth a lot of hassle and the subterfuge of the editor took all the magic out of the whole thing. The deadline for the publication will soon pass and I haven't re-submitted.

I guess I'm just getting more hard headed in my old age! That kind of thing is only one more reason I don't care if I ever publish another thing.

smile