I'm honestly curious as to what people think of these. Rather than introduce any of my unflattering, unorganized opinions into the matter, I'd like to ask:

Would you rather have a professional rejection letter than a letter with a list of errors from EqD?

We've all had our fair share of EqD rejections, so it's redundant to post an example. The following is an example of a professional rejection letter from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, one of the larger short fiction publishers out there. Nothing has been edited or changed, and you'll see why soon enough:

Dear Writer:

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your story. We regret that we are not able to make a personal reply or give criticism on returned manuscripts. The large number of submissions we receive makes it impossible to do so. We can assure you, however, that your work has been given careful consideration. Unfortunately, it does not meet our present needs.

We wish you the best of luck in placing your work with another magazine.

Cordially,
The Editors
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

Giving supporting reasons for your preference is highly encouraged.

That was actually quite a bit more polite than some of the rejection letters I've read.

1114583 Same, but rejection letters like that are more helpful to me personally, (Not like I go on EQD anymore anyways, or send stories anywhere other than this site) if I know something is wrong with my stories, I typically send it to my pre-readers, get it back from them, then check it once over myself and send it back.

1114576 I just like a list of examples alongside the error list.

1114576

If any pre-readers actually want to improve the way they do things and reads this thread (IE: Aquaman), then I suggest something professional like this, but compiling a list of the errors the author must fix to meet the needs of EqD. They do it now, but their letter is a tad under-professional. If they want to claim the title of a "professional publishing company that spotlights 'great' fanficiton," they'll need to put more professionalism in their work.

1114633
I am pretty sure that EqD's rejection letters follow the same structure, except instead of the default body, it's a list of preliminary errors. Care to elaborate on under-professional? I'm guessing tone?

They should just do it like that, they keep saying how their not an editor service but do it partially. And in some cases then people end up mad at them because they expect that their "advise" is for the whole thing and that they do not need to do anything else to pass.

I know its to try and help authors learn what mistakes they do by pointing out some examples of them, but then at least some end up expecting them to do all the work.

Its unfair but just as unfair as expecting them to read 100% of all submissions (especially if its not a one shot under 3-4k?) and fixing all errors for the writers.

1114633
And triple or more the time it takes them to actually go through fanfiction? Hell no, people complain about the waiting time as it is, better to not do it at all and let the author figure out what to do and go through all quickly.

I would love to just use a Yes/No system, but I feel that will only increase the amount of people saying we have no idea what we're talking about, or we're not qualified to be doing our jobs, or any other way of calling us fucking idiots, really.

I guess it depends on how much we care about that sort of thing.

1115357
1114712
Ugly Opinion #1 - I actually agree.

If being professional is what authors want of EqD, then maybe it'd be good to give professionalism - where the publisher (for the lack of a better word) is under no obligation whatsoever to provide service to the submitter save for basic courtesy.

Of course, that would mean even less resubmissions, but judging from the general tone of things, maybe that isn't such a bad thing. I would like to see how a counterpoint plays out - this is a discussion after all, and there still hasn't been much in the way of reasons yet.

1114576 I like that idea, but if they keep it the same, there's ONE thing I really, really want:

A list of what they did right.

It makes an author feel so much better about themselves, even if they have a huge list of errors, it makes them feel like there's hope in what they do. It makes new authors have something they feel confident on constantly writing. I lets pro-writers know what their readers love. It lets pre-readers be more optimistic.

Maybe EQD wouldn't be so hated and make people feel so sad if they just let people know that they did something right, not do a lot of things wrong.

1115714 Let me add my voice to yours in crying out for positives in addition to the negatives we get from EqD reviews. Compare and contrast the review I got from Equestria Daily for 'The Traveling Tutor and the Librarian' against the /fic/ review of the same story. EqD's review was an almost entirely negative review done from the first 2 chapters of a 36 chapter story (about 3%) while the /fic/ review covered the whole story in exhaustive detail with positive and negative comments, even though the reviewer hated the story. Although they are both useful for my "upgrading" process, the /fic/ review will be referenced many more times in the next few months of work.

1115958 I can tell the /fic/ review had much more effort put into it, seeing as they read the whole story, and they pointed both the positive and the negative. However, the major difference between the two reviews is obviously the length of the review. As seen in every review by EQD, they have time constraints and need to be descriptive but short with their review. The /fic/ review is enough to make you understand everything right and wrong with the story; however, the other review just gives you a summary of the arguably most important part of the story: the introduction. And, with the /fic/ review, it was a slight bit biased since they quickly got bored with reading it, but they still went on. Fixing every single tiny thing won't make the story better actually, since that reader likes it one way while another person hates it that way, and that's the only problem with readers: it's that what they like may not be what everyone likes.

I feel like I may have gotten off-topic; I'm not even sure. However, what I say is what if I believe to be true.

In short, the length of the EQD review but the emphasis on both the good and the bad of the story would suit well as a great review.

1114656
What I mean by "under-professional" is this:

Before Pre-Reader Letters:

Fanfic Box
Apr 27
To me
Thank you for your submission. However, due to issues with dialogue punctuation, inconsistent indentation, and compound word hyphenation, it cannot be forwarded to the pre-readers. This does not count as a strike.

All the best,
The EqD Team

Now, this is cool. I enjoy how they tell me what's wrong and stuff... But, what? Hold on, let me compare to another letter.

This is a letter after submission to a pre-reader. Albeit, not my own, but RainbowBob's.

This is Pre-reader Amacita. I’m happy to hear that you’re getting rid of that one comment.

Unfortunately, while I liked your story, I have to apologize: I’ve changed my mind, and I’m rejecting it with a strike, even though I previously told you, “I think we can probably post this, with some minor fixes.”

Our most experienced pre-reader just chimed in and told me that he would prefer that your story be rejected. He raised some good points, and I think he’s right. I’ve incorporated his comments into my feedback below.

As your story is a crossover, has a human in it, and has random and often vulgar humour (i.e. f-bombs), I should have realized that my opinion alone was unlikely to be shared by all Equestria Daily pre-readers. I should have told you that I needed a second opinion, and I’m sorry for not being more clear about that up front.

Some style and technical issues
A Youtube link is okay in the author’s notes, but not in the body of the story itself. Personally, I think it looks a bit amateurish to have it in the story body. Other pre-readers have said that if it doesn’t hurt the story to have it removed, you should probably do so.

Ezn’s Guide
offers a few more objective reasons not to use inline links: Don’t link to music in your story – many readers listen to their own music while reading, and have no interest in pausing it. Also, using music... won’t even work most of the time, because different people read at different speeds.

Check your punctuation on the song. There are some missing periods and some inconsistencies.
Come on and smile!
come on and smile!

Passive voice:
He poked my chest with a finger, a metallic thump being heard. (being heard?)

Unnecessary commas:
The strangest thing about them, was that their faces seemed almost... human. A large hack and slash weapon that’s wider than my arm and four feet long, more a sword than a knife, and ends in a fine, stabbing point. (before "stabbing point")

Paragraph spacing:
“Well, y-you don’t have to be “I, um... no,” I admitted. “It’s just that, I got just into it, you know?”

Unclear / confusing:
“I’m much more than mean, freak! Your damn singing nearly made me go on a homicidal rampage!” (Nearly? This is confusing, since it looks like he actually was shooting people in the previous chapter.)

Apostrophe placement:
muties’ (Should be “mutie's”)

Tense inconsistency:
Wiggling my toes, I discovered I can actually move them.

Awkward phrasing (the expect) and awkward shift to second person
Once you travel the Wasteland enough, the expect everything to be trashed and filled with crap.

Hyphenation:
With a well placed fist ("Well-placed")

Other errors:
And now I was at lost for words. (The phrase is "loss for words") Now the music ended just as mysterious as it came. (mysteriously) Looks like it was the braver of the group. (bravest) I tilted my head to the side, my neck movement a loud motion because of my neck plates. (a movement is a loud motion?) And by the looks of the artificial intelligent life support system (artificially intelligent / artificial intelligence) Bionic eyes make reading small script easy, and all the titles made no sense. (but all the titles) Nothing was making sense. I wished this was a bad dream. A testing program that Enclave scientists were putting him through. That had to be it. But what kind of sick bastards would put him through this type of torture? ("me," not "him") Heck, I could hear even more screams a shouts now. (screams and shouts)

It's/its confusion:
It’s hair was styled much like a human female’s hair.

Semicolon misuse.
My more aggravated tone was definitely intimidating; by the looks of those ponies glancing at each other, wondering what to do at the moment. (The second phrase—while long and unwieldy, in my opinion—cannot stand on its own as a sentence. This should probably be a colon.)

Make sure your stutters sound right when read out loud. For example, “W-What”: first of all, this sounds far less natural than "Wh-what," since in "what" the natural tendency is to run the "wh" together into one sound. Second, the second/third/etc instance of a stutter is generally not capitalized.

I'm also a touch uncomfortable with all the f-bombs. It's a staple of the humor, but I worry that it'd be a bit much for the blog.

— Pre-reader Amacita

Now, what I don't get is why they make me deal with two pre-readers one who tells me minor fixes and "no-strikes received" kind of thing when I could have a pre-reader rip my story to shreds so I can fix it immediately? Wouldn't this be a tad more professional if it was done all at once, rather than just saying "fix this junk quickly, then re-submit it."

I gave up after the second submission, because they sent me the same letter, even though I fixed everything they requested.

I don't know. Maybe it's my personal opinion, rather than what professionalism is shown here. I don't work at a publishing company.

1114712
People can fucking wait. It's a free service. You want it to be edited faster? Go pay an actual editor who knows what they're doing to read through your stuff.

I don't mean disrespect, but, being an impatient lug-nut won't help your case. I waited a week for my response and when I got it, I went to work on trying to fix up my story.

1114576 that is a really good example of professionalism right there ^^.

1115714

Oh, I agree with this. That'd be nice.

1116115

I actually agree but i just voiced the "popular" opinion. People dont care that its free, heck that probably just gives them even less reason to appreciate it.

For editing and such, i already said i think they should not do it at all.

Of course i would only use it temporary, to show people "professionalism".

But is it really if there is nothing to base it on except "hey that looks nice!"? the nice letter from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine might as well have been send by a person thinking"lol nope, we dont take trash", it just being a copy paste sent out to a bunch of people on a daily basis you cant tell anything from it.

For telling someone what he did right while pointing out mistakes, well... if they dont complain about something doesnt that by default mean you did that right in some form? And keep in mind they read only to a certain point, what if they dont find much to list under good, wont a big bad and a small good list just kill you more?

1117076

Stories will always have more bads than goods. If your story has more goods than bads, you're either an amazing writer or you're doing something wrong.

1115714
1115958
Hmm. Again, just my opinion - bother neutral phrasing and all - but that's not what they're geared to give. The pre-reading system is a rejection system rather than an editing one, where rejections come first - reasons for rejection phrased as "ways to improve" come second, perhaps, in a bid to sound more acceptable?

To give positives one would have to read far enough to find positives. I'm with Seattle's Angels and we do almost purely positive reviews, and boy it isn't as easy as you'd think. Some stories really need digging before you can say anything "good" about them - most don't have anything good, in fact, and simply execute ideas decently or to a merely unobjectionable level. This would depend on how jaded the reader is, where's the thresholds - for example, looking to the featured box, I'd call SS&E's Amethyst Star good but grudgingly so on basis of incredible characterization and writing skill, and the Pipsqueak and Luna one as only decent.

Where does this all lead? - that it takes a good deal more effort and conditions for someone to come up with good points, in a service that - as most will attest - simply receives whatever passes the C grade.

It would take a complete overhaul of the fundamental "the pre-readers are rejectors" image and personality, but... it is an interesting one, I'll give it that.

Also, side note: CartoonGeld is one of /fic/'s best reviewers hands-down. You got the luck of the draw with him; good on ya to give him credit, heh.

1116115
This is interesting. We're veering a bit off-topic from the letters to their issuers, but to play devil's advocate, the pre-reader was trying to go for an "equals" tone in his/her reasoning. While that's not professional in the strict sense, it is more human and less not-approachable. Being willing to confess one's weakness does take guts, especially when you're part of an already poo-poohed circle. And fair enough, none of the points he raised are wrong - from the fact that 1) there are errors and 2) this wouldn't be too suitable for the blog. And 1) consists of nothing new - they all do, in fact, fall under "minor fixes". So it's really just a reiteration of the first letter + f-bombs are not too good + strike - not as contradictory, maybe, as it comes across at first.

I agree that standards need to be unified, and that the minimum acceptance - the C grade - would do well to be drawn at a point of, perhaps, zero tolerance for grammar mistakes ad a definite level of writing quality as judged from reading experience. Some kind of simple memo or even a handbook for standards (to be circulated within) would help toward that.

I'm not a pre-reader, but as someone who, for a time, read ponyfic only to point out errors and areas that were decent but could be improved - using A grade standards, as you would - I can tell you that it gets increasingly easy to let small mistakes pass by, that it gets easier to just accept meh fics as okay, and as a consequence find that very, very little is of high standard. Maybe that's why bottom-line is so hard to fix. Some pre-readers aren't as jaded yet.

1118020 Well, the part that irked me the worst about the EqD review of Concept Art was the first review detailed out all the things they didn't like about it, and the grammar errors I had made. After fixing the things they pointed out, and going over it with what I thought was a fine-toothed comb, I resubmitted it only to have the same reviewer send back a brand new list of things he didn't like about it and problems that needed fixed, along with a snarky little comment about how it looked as if I had not changed anything. Expecting the same treatment on my third and last try. Oh well.

1118321
Did you get a third-party reviewer to look at it? I'd offer to have a look except I'm knee-deep in finals now this thread is procrastination in a high-level form--

Okay, haven't finished everything, but I've read enough to know that my personal opinion isn't going to let me evaluate this in a way you'd receive it. So as to not derail, I've left it on your story as the comment it is. I do hope it helps in the way of making sense of whatever rejection you might (or might not) receive.

Personally, I'd rather have the professional style letter. I'm used to them, and if anything they're more of a motivator than the EqD crap. But that's just me.