Editor Excited About My Book Then Seems to Disappear?

[Count Orlock]

In January, I sent my latest book manuscript to a senior editor at a well known university press. He expressed terrific enthusiasm over the book, and promised to send it out to reviewers. Well, that was the last I heard from him. I sent an inquiry email on its status in July (he was on vacation), and no response. Then a month later, a sent another friendly email, saying I was really hoping for an update. He should have at least responded, right? Here it is deep into October, and still no response. I would like this press to have it; furthermore, I spent two years revising this book for another distinguished press, which then turned it down. So the book is getting stale. Starting over would surely mean another year delay. But if the editor won't even give me the courtesy of an update? Shouldn't I have the right to that after him having the book for eight months? One of my colleagues dealt with a similar issue, at a similar university press. After a couple emails without responses, she sent another email to the prospective editor, saying that if she didn't hear from him in the next two weeks, she was pulling the book and sending it to another press. Guess what? That editor got her book on the shelves within a year. Should I take that route? I am terribly anxious over all of this: if it isn't resolved one way or the other soon, I will have to substantially increase my daily dose of Xanax.

[Parasaurolophus]

That seems way too long to me for any kind of response to a proposal.

But at the proposal stage, you don't need to shop the book one press at a time, either: you can absolutely send proposals out to other presses simultaneously. So in this case, you don't even need to pull it; you can just send the proposal elsewhere, and sit pretty until someone gets back to you.

Unless you mean that it wasn't at the proposal stage at all? If it was under contract and you sent it to them ten months ago... well, yeah, at that point an ultimatum is in order. (In my opinion!)

[Hegemony]

It sounds as if it was at the manuscript stage, am I right? The middle point between the proposal and the contract.

One thing about this editor is that you now know he is flaky as hell. He could have all sorts of solid reasons for encountering a delay, but he should respond to your emails. My guess is that he is terrible to work with even when you have a contract.

Once when a similar thing happened to me, I wrote an email to the person I guessed was the flaky person's senior, and asked if, granted that we're in a pandemic, Flaky Person was really okay? I had a fear that they had died of Covid or something and I simply didn't know. The senior person said, "Nope, they're fine, just chatted with them last week." So I wrote the "unless I hear from you in two weeks..." email. No response, so I pulled the piece. About six months later I got an email from Flaky Person saying, "Hey, I could get to it in six or eight months." I said "No thanks." Egregious.

So I'd go ahead and send the warning email, expect to hear nothing, and get another press in your sights. I'm sorry this has happened.

[Myword]

   Maybe something happened to the editor, nothing to do with you.

   after submitting an article to an editor and waiting, I looked him up on the internet and discovered he passed on
and no editor took his place.