I recently stumbled upon a critique of the LL chapbook and novella series. In a nutshell, the aspirant lambasted us for requesting that book manuscripts be submitted as PDFs, formatted entirely by the author. In the opinion of this critic, such a policy was slothful; he believed that LL, as publisher, assumed the responsibility of transforming manuscript novellas into finished works.
We request chapbooks and novellas in the form of a PDF because we want to see the unbridled creativity of our authors. We at LL are not copy-editors. That is not to say that we do not carefully copy-edit every book we accept before sending it to print... we do. But LL stands for the principle that literature, as a work of art, should constitute the product of its author's creativity (with bookmaking and formatting presenting mere extensions of the written project).
In the end, I find this critique comical. Such accusations of laziness are a thin disguise for the laziness of the authors who level them. If an author submitting to LL cannot be bothered to format his own manuscript, according to his own vision, why should we bother to give it consideration? Such disrespect for one's own art astounds me... Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any condition other than those that he has selected.
