I'm not that desperate, thanks.

A while back, I found a quirky ezine that I thought would be perfect for a quirky story that I couldn't find a home for. I submitted it and today I got a response from the editor. The response was one line long and had multiple spelling and grammar errors... it was badly written that I actually had to call someone else to help me guess at the meaning.

To make a long story short, he was offering to publish my story in a different ezine of his, which is non-paying. He didn't provide a link or even the proper name of the ezine, but when I got it figured out and found the site... yikes! It was a very poor knock-off of the original ezine I had submitted to. It had almost no content and had only been "in business" for a month. This second ezine didn't inform writers of what rights they're giving up or even the terms of use.

So I sent him a response, thanking him for his offer, but declining it. I also told him that I was withdrawing my story from his submission pile. I like seeing my stories in print, but I'm not that desperate.

Yowza! That sure sounds like the old bait-and-switch, doesn't it? Has the editor responded?

Sounds dodgy to me.