Why a living as a writer is impossible Part II: the SASE

In this second segment of the analysis of why it is literally (no pun intended) impossible to make a living as a writer. Today we’ll be discussing a little item writers know all too well and hate just as much as the new fall lineup on CBS: the SASE.

What is an SASE? It is a self-addressed stamped envelope. For any publication that is too behind the times to have an online submission manager (which we’ll discuss in a later segment) or accept submissions via e-mail, the writer must send his or her manuscripts on papyrus in a stamped envelope, and if they want to know if their work has been accepted or rejected, they must include a self-addressed stamped envelope in the same envelope.

This prevents the publisher from having to look at your cover letter, grab an envelope from the copy room, write your address on it, slap a stamp on it, and stuff it with your rejection notice. It’s a lot of work, so they pass it on to their submitters.

For any writer that wants to send a simultaneous submission, the SASE is crucial, because you have to wait for rejection before you can send the same manuscript anywhere else. So, you eat the 45 cents (probably soon to be 50) and double your out-of-pocket expenses to send your manuscript for submission.

Then comes the moment you open the mailbox and see a 3×5 envelope with your handwriting on the cover. There are few worse feelings than opening the mailbox and seeing an envelope you swiped from the mail room at your 9-5 with your own address slathered on the front in your orange pen in your own handwriting. You know it’s a rejection. You just know it.

Then, there are the large percent of SASEs that never get sent back, so you’re just wasting 45 cents on something that is slower than an old man in a Cadillac DeVille in the first place.

So who still uses SASEs, besides publications?

• The court system – but only if they are not image-enabled, and you require an original version of a document for some reason (such as notarization). But typically, electronic documents are acceptable as court documents.
• Comic books – (and some magazines) require that cartoons be submitted as originals – no photocopies. Glad I’m not an artist, because I would be too afraid an original of mine would be lost forever.

And that’s about all I could find. An SASE is a receptacle for a rejection, and nothing more. And the more I read about the SASE, the more empowered I feel to not include them anymore. After all, I won’t send my stuff to anyone that doesn’t accept simultaneous submissions. And I can use that 45 cents for happy hour at Sonic.

p.s. In researching this topic, I came across this post on a thriller writer’s blog. He is now added to my Google Reader, which I will not be giving up for Lent.

Happy Mardi Gras everyone!