I Don’t Mind Rejection Letters
I guess a lot of writers dread the thought of receiving rejection letters. I don’t. It’s only natural that we (and our works) don’t meet with universal appreciation. Respect (or rather, common courtesy) I do expect (as much as I’m prepared to pay it), but I cannot possibly hope for everyone to like me or my accomplishments.
The pen is mightier than the sword, Font: “James Fajardo”
Theory Doesn’t Have to Be Grey
Quite some time ago, I attended a web design course. As far as I was concerned, it was a perfect waste of time.
With several years of practical experience in the field under my belt, and a trainer who hadn’t ever ventured beyond textbook wisdom, I had already forgotten more than he would ever know about it. This, sorry to say, is no exaggeration.
After about half an hour, it was obvious (to me) that my fellow students had no chance to ever comprehend why they had signed up for a web design training.
Two hours into the course, we had a break for a smoke. At this point, even an absolute beginner could tell that this training (scheduled to last several weeks) was not going to go anywhere.
I was bored beyond words and quite frustrated. The course was already paid in full, but I couldn’t imagine myself attending this drama for three months. I needed a plan to escape the environment of grey (and rather useless) theory.
Let me be clear: solid theoretical knowledge is fundamental even to the most creative of processes. Yet there is no reason for theory to be grey.
How to Spend Wasted Time
Back home again, I decided to write a web design guide based on the questions my fellows raised. To make the process a bit more interesting for myself, I applied certain rules:
- The guide was to fit on a floppy disk (1.44 MB), so everyone could carry it with them
- The guide was to be tool agnostic, as a decent designer has no need for fancy tools
- The guide was to show rather than lecture
- Every user should be able to read and comprehend any given lesson inside of a minute (or so)
Quite logically, I titled this e–book (a booklet, really) “1 Minute of Web Design”. Since I targeted it on absolute beginners, they should be able to read it either cover to cover or use it for reference.
Two weeks later, it was finished. I asked several students to check its readability, and trainers to look for factual or logical errors. The reception was overwhelming.
One trainer even asked for my consent to use it as a digital textbook in his own courses, and another sacrificed two training days of her own course to have me as a guest lecturer.
Within a week, the booklet that had been written for nine students (my own fellows) was in use by hundreds of students.
They urged me to look for a publisher. I was hesitant, as I never had intended to sell it. I had merely written it to kill some time and give my fellows a hand, along the way.
After several weeks, however, I gave in to constant pressure. Yet I felt that I had to give a publishing house something they could actually sell. So I sat down and revamped it.
To have a dynamic structure for comfortable working, I wrote a small Content Management System (CMS) to wrap around it. I added screen shots and diagrams to illustrate the body text, developed copy–and–paste–ready examples, provided all source codes, and discussed which of the applicable web standard criteria each chapter met.
The basic concept was to prove that decent web design is possible with open source (and even free) software, and to guide readers towards meeting web standards. Each chapter explained a technique, and, at the same time, used it. As it were, what you saw was exactly what you got.
The entire reproduction took about a month. The book now exceeded its original size of 1.44 MB considerably (about three times), because of additional examples and a number of extra files the dynamic structure required. Nevertheless, it was still small enough to be stored on a standard USB stick.
It set a fine example of what web design can achieve. The guide was accessible, standard compliant, easy to read and follow. It could also be converted to other formats without much ado.
The Publisher from Hell
Still not sure whether I really wanted it published, I sent several publishing houses an e–mail with a cover letter of sorts. I explained what the book was about, and why, and asked for the odds to see it on the shelves.
Two days later, one house specialising in that kind of publications replied that they were “very interested”. I shouldn’t bother sending a synopsis or reading sample, but provide either a link or send the entire manuscript. Confidentiality guaranteed, of course. I did as I was told.
Another two days later (and that should have rang some alarm bells), I received a promising e–mail, saying that they loved it, and whether I would mind making changes, if at all necessary.
Of course, I would edit it. They would hand it over to one of their specialists and, if found to fit into their catalogue, have a meeting to discuss conditions.
A week later, I received word that it was considered an excellent piece of work. They just loved all of it: its visual design, the way it conveyed information, how I communicated with the reader, the ease to follow the examples, and, last but not least, the overall concept.
Then, the ordeal of waiting commenced. Ten weeks later, I still hadn’t received a single request to revise anything.
Eventually, I contacted the specialist who had praised my book to the skies. He replied that my timing was just perfect. There would be a meeting at the end of that week, and he would contact me with the results.
And he stood by his word. They had agreed to publish it, but would I mind replacing every mention of the open source text editor with [Fancy name of proprietary, obscenely expensive product, which I refuse to mention here]? And could I, please, pretend I actually had used [Fancy name of proprietary, obscenely expensive product, which I refuse to mention here] to write the book? That would be just perfect!
It doesn’t happen often, but this time I was dumbfounded. It had taken them three months to decide to publish yet another book (their catalogue already listed half a dozen of that kind) that promoted [Fancy name of proprietary, obscenely expensive product, which I refuse to mention here] for no better reason than the fact that potential buyers would immediately recognise its name.
I stayed away from the keyboard for two days; I’m not sure whether I could have kept my wits, had I replied to this indecent proposal immediately. I’d rather they had simply sent a rejection letter, three months ago. Thus, I wrote to the specialist:
Dear Mr. Bumsucker [name changed for privacy reasons],
I sincerely regret having wasted three months of your precious time. I can only hope you will accept my apologies.On the assumption that you have actually read the manuscript you pretended to think of so highly, you will certainly understand that I have to reject your proposal.
Advertising proprietary software at a price in excess of US-$500 per legal copy utterly contradicts the core concept of my book.
Should your request be a sine qua non criterion, I shall not fail to inform you that further negotiations will be in vain.
What can I say? I don’t like everyone or what they do. And, sad as it is, I have a hard time hiding it from them. Yet at least I know how to show some respect.