Pet Peeves

I have two writing-related pet peeves.

1) Advice books by people who have never had anything published... other than their advice book. I was in Indigo on the weekend and I checked out a book that was supposed to have helpful tips on novel-writing. On the very first page, the author admitted that he had no creds. Way to sell yourself, dude. I put the book back.

2) Ezines and print magazines with terrible/missing/ambiguous submission instructions. Ex1) "We only accept submissions that have not been previously published before." Ex2) "Please send your submission as an .rtf or it will not be opened. We do not open attachments."

Oh, I hear ya.

Here's a list of submission guidelines that drive me nuts:

1) Submission instructions that have 9+ steps.
2) Poorly organized submission instructions that bounce all over the place and turn into editorials.
3)Hard-to-find submission guidelines.
4)Quasi-threatening payment terms. ex) You can have 25 bucks or two copies of the magazine... but we'd really like it if you'd donate your payment back to us... we tend to publish out supporters first.
5)Submission forms that are missing some vital piece of information.
6)Signing up for a submission service, filling out their stupid form (by now there's a half-hour invested in the project), sending it, and then getting an email stating that your ms is saved in the "wrong" document style... but they don't tell you what the "right" document format is.
7)Ezines that accept your story and then fold before the first issue.