A Writer's Notebook, Day Nine-Hundred-And-Eighty-Seven

As a person with my disabilities, I often need assistance in certain kinds of tasks.  This is the reason that I hired Freesia McKee to help with my submissions.  That has been a very positive partnership, in many ways, though it has not been as fruitful in terms of getting work accepted as I had hoped.  At this time, however, Freesia has decided to step away from a lot of the side work she's been doing, in order to focus on her own writing, career, and life.  While it is hard for me, I understand the decision, so I am working on finding someone else who can offer me the same type of help going forward.

One suggestion I was offered was to contact a company that offers support for writers.  I spoke with someone who was very nice on the phone.  I expressed to her the kinds of assistance I need, and even expressed some of my reservations about working with her company.  When we talked, she mentioned a number of aspects to their process that seemed like they might be fruitful, and suggested that they wanted to offer help beyond just sending out the work, but in terms of strategizing to get it placed.  All of that is great sounding, but when I received the contract, none of those aspects of the service were in it.  The only explicit obligations the company is offering is to assemble packets, send them out, and track them.  These are services I, as a result of dyslexia et al, need, and I would be glad to have someone who offered only those services, but not at the rate they quoted me of $800.00 (discounted from the original quote of $1600.00).  By contract, they would have no other obligations, and they offer no sorts of assurances about outcomes, of course.  So, in the end, they are only contracting, despite what the nice lady on the phone says, to only do the bare minimum of sending out the work for me.  They are selling based on promises that are not reflected in the actual contract, and I can't help but feel a bit disgusted by that.  I mean, I know it is impossible to guarantee a person success at publishing a set of poems, but their needs to be some degree of accountability, when your sales pitch is about having a team to strategize in order to get the work accepted.  And what's really insane is that I doubt the people involved even consider how dishonest they are being.

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