You submitted your post last week. Should you email a reminder yet?
OK, now it’s been almost a month and you’ve heard nothing. Should you be worried?
Your follow-up email didn’t get answered. Neither did the follow-up to the follow-up.
As time creeps on, you start to feel like you must have done something wrong. Maybe the editor doesn’t like your post. Maybe they’ll never speak to you again. Maybe you won’t get paid, either.
The tension’s killing you. All you want to know is what happened?
And right now, only your editor knows the answer. But they’re not talking –at least, not to you– so it’s up to you to find out. Here’s how to cope with an editor gone AWOL:
Don’t Feel Bad About It
You’re not alone.
This is Leslie Lee Sanders. [Say hi, Leslie!]
She had exactly this problem last month. And the month before that. In fact, her editor hadn’t answered an email in 3 months.
On April 1st when my post Don’t Be a Fool: How to Avoid Getting Played by Your Clients went live, Leslie left me a comment that sparked my curiosity nosiness investigative instinct:
My client stopped answering my emails and practically disappeared, or rather I disappeared from their radar, after I delivered ahead of deadline exactly what I promised. I received no acknowledgement of the contract which was signed (by me at least) and may not even get the contracted kill fee…
I have no idea what to do because this person is very well-known and very respected. Iโm completely baffled by the unprofessional treatment and feel like a fool at the same time.
I knew Leslie wasn’t a fool about vetting clients or following up with editors; she’d sent me gentle reminders about her guest post for Be a Freelance Blogger. So I asked for more details, and this is what she told me via email:
I was assigned an article from the senior editor… He told me the deadline and I agreed and asked for the contract. A month later he sends me the contract with payment and kill fee terms (25%). It was a couple weeks from the deadline and I had completed the article so I sent the article and the signed contract back to him in the same email as attachments. I haven’t heard from him after several emails and 3 months.
Don’t worry; this story has a happy ending. It just takes a while to get there. Here’s the advice I gave Leslie, and that I’d give any freelancer in her position:
Check for Signs of Life
Look your editor up on their blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, or wherever they have a public profile online.
Leslie told me her editor was still very active online. If your editor’s posting fresh updates, then they’re still out there somewhere within reach of an internet connection.
OK, there’s an outside chance that you’re looking at prescheduled updates from beyond the grave, but more likely your editor’s simply ignoring your emails.
Of course it’s always possible that your emails aren’t getting through. Like I told Leslie,
- Your ed may have changed email addresses – do you get any autoresponse emails like “we’ve received your message & will get back to you”, or do you just get dead silence?
- Not to be condescending, but have you double-checked the spelling of the email address?
- If your emails have been caught by a spam filter, he may not have seen them at all.
In this situation, feel free to email your editor again if you like. Or, since we already know that isn’t working, you might want to try something else.
Connect in a Different Medium
I’m praying to all the gods that you get full contact information for all your clients as soon as you start discussing a project. If you already did, great! Pick up the phone and give them a call.
But if you didn’t, Google is your friend. Try to get a phone number for your editor, or for someone –anyone!– in the same company who might be able to tell you the best number to use.
If you can’t find any phone numbers, or you’re simply too chicken to use them, search out any other way you can contact your editor:
- LinkedIn is good. Connect with your editor if you haven’t already, and send them a message.
- A second email address might help, but it might be one that’s rarely checked, so don’t rely on it to save the day.
- Facebook and Twitter aren’t so useful because you have to either send a public message (which isn’t professional unless you word it *very* tactfully) or send it privately and risk it never being seen (a lot of people, including me, don’t check their private messages on social networks very often).
- Snail mail isn’t dead yet. Some people pay more attention to a piece of paper in an envelope than they do to email, so it’s worth trying if you’ve got a postal address for your editor.
Found something you can use to get in touch with your editor? Excellent. Time to psych yourself up for this conversation…
Forget Emotions and Follow Facts
Nobody likes to be ignored. It makes you sad, angry and frustrated all at the same time, until you just want to scream at your editor and force them to answer you.
You know how silly you feel after you’ve taken your frustrations out on an innocent bystander or an inanimate object?
Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. ๐ You don’t want to embarrass yourself like that when you finally manage to get through to your editor.
Fear of seeming pushy or negative held Leslie back from reaching out again to her editor:
I’ve been reluctant to contact him on social networking sites because I don’t want to come off as unprofessional or overly aggressive. Is this my problem?
I do have his mailing address and phone number. Still, I haven’t used those for the same reasons as above. I once tried a friendly communication on Twitter and was ignored, or rather, received no response (however you want to look at it).
If I have to call him, do you think all ties are severed at that point? Do you think that’s a foolish question since I should value my work enough to not want to work with a problem editor?
It’s easy to fall into this trap of viewing your non-responsive editor as a problem you have to fight against. But fighting isn’t what you want, is it?
Try to keep your fears and hurt feelings out of the conversation, and focus on the information you need instead.
Here’s what I emailed back to Leslie:
- If you’ve got a phone number, use it! It’s not unprofessional to follow up by phone if email isn’t answered.
- Keep in mind that your client may not intend to be a problem, so you don’t need to think of this as a confrontation.
- Simply contact your editor and remind them that you submitted your piece. All you want at this point is to find out whether they received it or not.
- If they didn’t get it, offer to resend it. If they did receive it, politely ask whether they still intend to run it.
- You just have to gather your courage and dial. I know you’re worried about your editor’s reaction, but they’re unlikely to start screaming down the phone at you. The worst that can happen is you find out your article won’t be published. Then you can pitch it to another publication, so it’s not really bad news!
The key thing to remember is that your editor is human. Even the most reputable, most professional and most charming editor isn’t perfect all the time. If they go incommunicado, it’s probably for their own reasons and nothing to do with your work, so be kind and chase them up without any drama.
Let’s assume for a moment that you’ve already done all that. If your editor still doesn’t respond to your efforts, you need to know what next steps are available…
Be Persistent (But Don’t Waste Time)
Leslie tried calling her editor, only to find that his extension number was invalid. She emailed me again to say,
I sent him a follow up Tuesday to a Gmail account he has listed on LinkedIn. No response yet. But I fear that I will not ever get a response from him. If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear what you think my next step should be.
Do I contact him via LinkedIn, Twitter or one of his blogs? Do I assume he’s not interested in the piece? Should I assume I’m not getting the kill fee because he hasn’t acknowledged receiving the contract?
At this point, even I wasn’t entirely optimistic about Leslie’s chances of hearing from her editor again. But, as an editor who often gets snowed under with pitches and submissions myself, I knew it was possible her editor simply hadn’t worked far enough down his to-do list yet and would email her back eventually.
To be practical about the situation, though, I suggested, “If you can’t get a response from him within a couple of weeks of concerted effort, assume that your article isn’t going to be published and start pitching it to other buyers.”
If you take this step, email your original editor and let them know you may offer the piece to another market. Be polite and matter-of-fact; remember this is not a confrontation. And tell your editor immediately if your article’s accepted by another publisher!
Don’t be afraid that taking your piece to another market will ruin your relationship with your original editor. One blogger withdrew her submission to Be a Freelance Blogger last month because she’d already sold it elsewhere after I took longer than usual to respond; I congratulated her and invited her to pitch another idea. If an editor likes your work, they’ll want to buy more.
This is business. There comes a point when you have to evaluate the time you spend chasing up an editor against the money that project offers. If you’re adding hours in communication time, eventually it’ll stop being worth your while.
When All Else Fails… Get Someone in Your Corner
11 days later, Leslie and I had a mentoring session together. We talked about her blogging portfolio and fiction writing credentials, then got on to the topic of her non-responsive client. She still hadn’t heard a peep.
I was mystified, and I really wanted to find out how the story would end. So I decided to give it a nudge.
I emailed Leslie’s editor using the subject line “Follow up: Leslie Lee Sanders” and said,
Dear [Editor],
I’m a mentor to Leslie Lee Sanders, a writer who submitted an article to you late last year for [the publication]. Since sending you her article (along with the contract you supplied), Leslie hasn’t heard from you, though she’s followed up by email several times.
May I ask the status of Leslie’s submission? It would be a relief for her to know what happened, and to be able to move forward whether the piece is to be published or not.
Thank you,
Sophie Lizard
Just a couple of hours later, I received a reply from Leslie’s editor. Even better, so did Leslie!
He’d been distracted by other projects. He still planned to publish her piece. He apologised for the delays.
Touchingly, he admitted he’d put off responding to her messages simply because he wanted to have some kind of progress to report when he contacted her. He felt embarrassed because he hadn’t done anything with her work yet.
The editor didn’t know what to say to the writer in this situation, so he’d procrastinated. A simple, no-pressure message from a third party [in this case, me] was all it took to prompt him to act.
And Leslie? She was just relieved to know what was going on. This was a dream gig for her, and she was so happy it was going ahead that she didn’t care about the delay.
6 Steps to Stay Sane When Your Editor Stops Answering Your Emails
This was a long story, so let’s run through the survival steps again. If your editor suddenly stops answering your emails after you submit a post,
- Don’t feel bad about it
- Check for signs of life
- Connect in a different medium
- Forget emotions and follow facts
- Be persistent (but don’t waste your time)
- When all else fails, get someone in your corner. I’m here if you need help.
Have you ever been through a communication blackout with one of your editors? How did you handle it?
Images: Leslie Lee Sanders, deadstar 2.1, BrittneyBush, Search Engine People Blog
A treasure of information and practical lessons I would readily do when something like this happens to me.
Personally, Iโm biased towards two of the steps:
4 and 6
4. Forget emotions and follow facts=> โฆBecause I tend to be emotional when problems arise. My emotional temperature reaches uncomfortable levels if days have passed without seeing some positive developments happening about the issue.
6. When all else fails, get someone in your corner. Iโm here if you need help.=> Iโll surely remember this step. Anybody will feel much better if someone is ready to back โem up.
I think all bloggers should master these steps.
Excellent post Sophie.
Thanks, Anthony! Yep, seeing past your emotional distress and keeping communications professional is tough sometimes, but it always pays to keep your cool (even if you go and punch some pillows in private afterwards).
Great info, Sophie. It’s hard to know sometimes where the line is between persistence and being a nag. Your solution was brilliant, I’ll remember that someday if I’m ever in the situation.
Hey, Leanne, thanks! I think persistence only shifts to nagging if (a) you follow up more than 2 or 3 times in a week, or (b) you express yourself in a way that implies blame for the editor.
Hurray for Leslie for not giving up, and thanks Sophie for another excellent post. This is great advice for all kinds of freelancing, not just writing. It’s so hard to keep your emotions in check when you feel ignored. Numbers 1 and 4 resonated the most with me and are excellent reminders that that this is just business. Sure that’s a cliche, but in my experience such cliches often ring true.
Yep, if you substitute “client” for “editor” you could probably post this on any freelancing site. The principles of good business are the same for us all. ๐
Thank you, Mary. The toughest moment was thinking that eventually I would have to give up. Which is why I couldn’t do it. A few people even told me it was a lost cause. Still, I couldn’t let it go. Not that easily at least. If you really want something you can’t give up on it, right? ๐
Awesome! Another thing I try to do is to always pitch new ideas in a follow up. I have a personal rule to always pitch something in every contact with an editor if possible! That can help take the pressure off them too because it’s clear that you’re happy to move on from the last project and you’ve got other stuff on the table.
I like that tip, Lisa! A clever tactic that works in more than one way.
Thanks for the post, Sophie. Currently I have but one editor and she is very much into staying in touch. Any concerns are answered promptly; in spite of her unenviable workload. When I began freelancing, it wasn’t much about the internet, as it hadn’t really caught on, at that point in time. Snail mail and telephone were the means of communication, by-and-large. I had pretty good luck staying in touch with my editor(s) but some of my friends had some problems getting their due.
Thanks, Richard – it’s so easy for us bloggers to forget the days when snail mail, phone, fax and in-person meetings were the only options for a freelance writer to keep in touch with editors. You’ve reminded me that an unanswered email is one of those “first world problems”!
This hasn’t happened to me yet, but I can really relate to how easy it is to assume the worst about a situation and take it personal when that often isn’t the intent. Yet, I also found myself relating to the procrastinating editor, since there are times when I put off responding to people when I am unsure or unprepared with an adequate reply, too. Great post! And, great tip to stay focused on the facts!
Editors are human. Fallible, procrastinating, emotional humans. If freelance writers make one big mistake in these situations, it’s thinking of their clients and editors as unreal people who only exist in their professional capacity.
Hello Sophie Lizard,
Awesome informational piece that is absolutely life saving, i think having this kind of informational piece will help anybody who is yet to experience this or currently experiencing this kind of unprofessional treatment from his/her editor in a better matured position to handle it.
Getting to read this post entirely will PROVIDE most writers on how to best address their own particular situation.
Above all it does pay not to give up and involving a third party like Leslie Lee Sanders has done SEEMS super cool, she eventually had the best of the situation and the mannerism in which she handled it shows that patience is still a virtue.
Thanks, Olatunji, for your comment on how I handled the situation.
No matter the issue I think it’s best to be professional when involving business. It’s great to show some personality and to be friendly with clients (not super serious all the time). However, to expand on something Sophie mentioned in an above comment, if you express yourself in a way that is pointing blame on the editor/client then the situation changes from business to personal. When you’re not being attacked there’s no need to defend yourself, that’s something Sophie reminded me.
So I may be having this problem right now.
Applied for a home/culture/arts blogging position I found via the Freelance Writer’s Den, had a phone interview (which I took to mean they were very serious about this position), and got selected to be a writer a few weeks later. Was put in contact with the lead editor, who had me sign a contract and send my first 3 ideas (titles only) to him for consideration.
That’s been over two weeks ago now.
Just followed some of your steps, and yes, he’s alive on Twitter and I just saw he has LinkedIn. Tomorrow on my marketing day I’m going to email my other contact at that company and ask about him, and/or send him a LinkedIn message.
After that, we’ll see. ๐
Two weeks isn’t a *huge* time from an editor’s perspective, I reckon. Your reminder will probably nudge them to get on with it!
Sophie, the best advice on this topic ever: “Your client may not intend to be a problem, so you donโt need to think of this as a confrontation.”
Looking at the situation from that perspective changed everything!
Kudos on this post. I’m sure your advice will help many. And thanks for helping me.
Thank *you*, Leslie, for letting me share your story.
Great post, Sophie. I’ve had a few problems with disappearing clients. Funny thing, it almost always happens right after they agree to hire me. The conversation is like:
Me: I’d love to work for you. Here’re my rates.
Them: Looks great. We’d love it if you worked for us.
Me: Great. When should I get started?
Them: …
Me: Hi. Just wondering when I should start.
Them: ……
I usually the rule of three. I follow up three times and, if I don’t hear anything, I drop it and assume they went with someone else. After reading Leslie’s story, though, I’m thinking that maybe I should keep at it a little longer.
Thanks for the kick in the pants.
I’ve had those conversations too! I think those clients are either disorganised or unwilling to admit their low budget.
If you haven’t got as far as a contract or service agreement, then I agree I’d give up after 2 or 3 reminders and add them to a list of people to follow up if I’m ever short of work. If you’ve already delivered your work, like Leslie, then I’d put more effort into finding out what’s going on.
Stellar post as always, Sophie. ๐
What works best for me is drawing a mental line in the sand.
If an editor doesn’t get back to me, I move on to the next
project. The highest and best use of my time is writing copy –
not worrying about things I can’t control.
Normally, one of two things will happen: either the editor will
eventually contact me with a valid reason for not touching base
sooner, or they won’t. Sometimes, things just happen.
That’s fine. But when editors blatantly give me the brush-off,
it feels like they’re giving me the finger. Not cool.
So what do I do? I rise above the situation. If the editor and I
can finish the project in question, I’ll do so – and then I double
my fees on the next project. This way, I win twice: I demonstrate
that I can handle a less than optimal situation with class, and my
bank account will get fatter as a result. If the editor refuses to
work with me in the future, I haven’t lost anything. In fact, I’m
better off for the experience…
At the end of the day, what editors do to us doesn’t matter.
But how we react to what they do says the most about us
as freelance professionals. That’s infinitely more valuable
than money…
Yes! It’s all about how you react. You can’t assess the situation accurately, because you’ve only got one side of the information; all you can do is keep communications professional and not spend more time than it’s worth.
Yep, you replace “editor” with “client” and you have my upcoming guest blog, LOL. Great tips!! Thanks for sharing her story.
Yep, your guest post is gonna rock! It’s a great complement to this one, because it covers the other waiting stage when you don’t even have an assignment yet.
It means before signing a contract we must take care of important points to avoid any embarrasing situation; secondly we must not rely on only one source of communication and keep trying several; thirdly if distances allow we must visit the office of our employer and fourth and the last one is we must try to deal with such situation without losing our goodwill with our employer or client.
Another unique post by you; thanks a lot
As far as in-person visits are concerned, it’s also worth calculating the cost of your transport and your time – no point spending $150 to chase up a $100 blog post!
My editor was too polite and welcoming when we signed the contract. She liked the articles I wrote for her magazine. And then she disappeared, after collecting all the articles for that month. I was observing her website being developed and re-designed. I assumed she must be busy and caught in stuff. I hoped against hope that she’ll respond to our emails (mine and other writers). She, however, then de-activated all her social media accounts and I’ve not seen any update on her website either. We left her emails, contacted her phone, left her messages, yet she refuses to reply us back. I tried to contact one of our mutual friends, but that person has gone mute too. She wouldn’t help.
I feel it was highly unprofessional of the editor to so. If she was facing a problem it could be discussed, we’d have understood. Having tried all the mediums, I’m thinking of writing her an email and letting her know since I didn’t get any acknowledgment or payment for the work that I duly performed, I’ll be putting those articles on my blog. She has done breach of contract.
Do you think that would be the right thing to do? It has been more than two months now, and still not a word from her side. I’ll keep my tone professional and void of any emotions.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Uzma
If her website and social media are dead, then her business probably doesn’t exist anymore. And if she hasn’t paid, she doesn’t own any rights to your work. I’d go ahead and publish elsewhere if it were me.
I’m in a blackout right now and have done most of these without following a strategy. Only difference is that I’m chasing my final payment and not some feedback :S
I think that #1 is so important – I think that as writers, we tend to be sensitive and automatically think that the problem is with us or our work. Thanks for sharing – great tips as always!
Hi Sandra, I hope you hear from your slow-paying client soon! Dealing with late payments is a topic I’ll cover in a future post, too, but the principles are the same.
Fantastic article and really good tips. The bit about sticking to the facts is the part I struggle with, I fret about editor responses and take silence personally.. I know this is silly and constantly remind myself of this fact. You are quite right when you say there is nothing unprofessional about phoning an editor to chase things up, they are probably just bogged down themselves. So persistance is definitely a key part of freelancing. Thanks for these tips.
You’re welcome, John. Getting your attitude aligned with your objective is at least half the battle won, so don’t let a silent editor get you down!
Thanks for this post, Sophie (and to Leslie!). It restores some of our lost sanity. ๐ I know all of us get to ignore and get ignored due to the chaotic business lives we’re heading, but writers usually have to face this more than others. I have an editor who bought my work and told me it would be a long while before publication. But it has been 5 months, and considering it is a web publication, my curiosity is killing me. I asked her whether she had a date in mind, but she hasn’t gotten to me yet. I know she is alive, but I don’t want to be annoying. Especially since I knew it would be a long while from the beginning. But I’m just trying to figure out how long is long enough before I ask…again ๐
Some editors do sit on a piece until the time is right. I’ve submitted blog posts to clients who’ve kept them for up to 6 months before publishing. If you’ve been warned to expect delays, then I’d still check in once a month or so just to see if a publication date’s been scheduled yet.
Does your client pay on acceptance or on publication? If it’s pay on acceptance, then you can move on to pitching a new piece to the editor!
Thanks, Pinar. Glad Sophie shared my story, especially if it helps others. ๐
Talk about REALLY being in someone’s corner. I love that you actually contacted the editor on Leslie’s behalf. (And congrats Leslie for landing the gig!)
As someone who’s had her fair share of unresponsive editors I completely agree that follow-ups (or follow-up to the follow-up messages) shouldn’t be confrontational and should maintain a polite, “as-a-matter-of-fact” tone. No need to get emotional (no matter how anxious we may be); like you said, this is business.
The situation is a bit more difficult when it comes to unresponsive clients though. When I was starting out, I had a client who just disappeared after I sent the articles. All my emails, calls, and invoice reminders were ignored.
That’s when I learned to always ask for a deposit upfront.
Thanks for stopping by, Francesca! Yeah, a disappearing client is every freelancer’s nightmare. Advance payment or deposit upfront is the best way to protect your cash flow, no matter who the client is. But even a deposit doesn’t guarantee the balance will be paid–I once had a client who paid a 50% deposit but then refused to return my calls after I delivered my work, so I forfeited the 50% balance because it was a tiny job and not worth an hour of my time to chase it up.
Thank you, Francesca! ๐
Thanks for sharing.Great tips!
Thanks for these great tips Sophie. An editor accepted an article and poem from me and said that both would be published. The article was published but several queries about the poem have been ignored. I decided not to waste any more time. Your post has given me the courage to make some important queries to another editor. Thanks again.
Congratulations on getting your article published! ๐
Submissions are closed for this year, but, if you’d like to get your poetry published in a small zine, I’d recommend Hello, World! – http://www.bombshell-comics.com/news.html The editor (Michael) is SUPER nice and very open-minded when it comes to creativity.
Hello, World! doesn’t pay unfortunately, but you *do* get a free copy of the zine if your poem is published and permission to sell copies of said zine anywhere (and at any price) you like. Mostly: It’s fun!
I’ve been out of the poetry game for a while now (except for my yearly contributions to Hello, World!), but I’d continue to check out magazines and websites that consistently publish poetry. Don’t be afraid to hit up the more “underground” zines & publications as well.
Good luck!!
Hello Sophie,
For years, my goal was to write. Life has not afforded that opportunity until now. I would like to begin working in this industry, however, I am extremely novice with this process. I have years of writing in several styles, as well as all necessary skills, yet do not know how to begin this process. Is it possible you can help or offer some one who can? Thank you very much for this valuable post usable in my ‘future’.
You simply need to come up with at least one good blog post idea and at least one paying market you can pitch that idea to. Pitching is a skill that you’ll improve with practice –to get started, use the Ultimate List of Better Paid Blogging Gigs and follow the instructions inside!
So, what exactly is a good idea?
One that you can imagine at least a thousand people wanting to read about. It can be almost anything, as long as you can find a way to show that it’s relevant to a fair-sized audience.
I’m considering a new training course now on the easiest ways to come up with new blog post ideas… I’ll let you know if I’m going to go ahead with that!
Oh, i was in a state of nervous breakdown when i didn’t hear from my editor on two articles that i submitted. Each day was killing. I spent nearly 45 days worrying so much about the pieces that I had submitted. I pretty much did everything that you have mentioned except that I didn’t get a third person to write a mail for me. Finally, i decided to call to call her. I must tell you i felt very crazy when i dialled the number. When she finally spoke to me she said, “Oh, i replied to you yesterday”. Well, i didn’t receive it. Anyways, when i checked the status of my stories, she said its on and even asked me to go ahead and write another story for upcoming editions ๐
I read your post just before I called and it was certainly encouraging as it indicated that i wasn’t doing something weird.
Moral of the story :
Writers must have tons of patience (i wish i had al least an gm of it!)
Sophie, I have had to start a diary of sorts for all of the information I am getting from you. That may sound funny but I am so afraid of information-overload, that I want to keep some of what I am learning in a safe place, and not in my head. Where it could possibly get lost.
Thank you again!