On Wed, 25 Feb 1998 14:36:12 -0500 Murray Pomerance wrote:
 
> There are plenty of civil ways to reject a manuscript, and we are giving
> up civility, I fear.
 
I know of someone who did pretty well on this.  He was asked to advise on a book
 proposal by a
major academic publisher and concluded that it was "fucking abysmal".  These
 sentiments were
set out (including the quoted phrase) in an e-mail to the commissioning editor.
 Unfortunately, the
address he typed in was that of the proposal's author...
 
Trying to broaden this thread a little, are there any doctoral students in film
 studies on this
list who, like myself, are experiencing intense frustration and lack of success
 in getting anything
published?  I submitted a paper to Historical Journal of Film Radio and
 Television (about
newsreels in post-war Britain) last March; EIGHT MONTHS later the editor had
 failed to get back
to me with readers' reports, despite a succession of e-mails telling me that
 action was imminent.
In the end the head of postgraduate research here at Exeter advised me that this
 behaviour
was completely unprofessional (here here) and that I should withdraw the paper.
 She further
advised that I should not mess around trying to get things into journals, but
 complete the thesis
and aim for a book contract.  I am rather sceptical about that: let's face it,
 400 pages on
non-fiction cinema in Britain during the period of Attlee's government is not
 exactly going to have
OUP or the British Film Institute hammering at my door.
 
I am wondering if this is a specifically British problem.  We don't have a
 established forum for
'younger' academics to get into first-time print (in the same way that 'Cinema
 Journal' operates in
the US) and the openings for pieces on film history and technology especially
 are severely limited.
 I guess I burnt some boats with HJFRTV as there is no other obvious place for
 my paper to go.
About the only other things are 'Screen' and 'Sight and Sound': you have to be
 an established
academic of considerable stature to get at the former, and have to be able to
 write for a
semi-academic audience in the latter.
 
Is there anyone else on this list who has had similar experiences, and if so,
 how did they deal with
them?
 
Many thanks,
 
Leo Enticknap
University of Exeter, UK
 
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