Manuscript Submission Guidelines
What Not To Do When Submitting Your Manuscript To A Publisher
Author: Jordana Ryan
Once your manuscript is complete you are ready to begin your search for the publisher that will best meet your needs. Research your genre to find publishers who accept what you have written. Look at books that they have already published and determine where your story will fit in.
Once you have found a publisher who catches your eye, make sure that you take the time to carefully read their submission guidelines. You may have written the most wonderful story in the world, but if you do not follow the publishers specifications, you may find that your manuscript will lie untouched at the bottom of a pile of submissions from authors who did follow the rules.
Once you have read the guidelines, you are ready to work on preparing your submission. You might need to go back and fix your spacing and indentations to the specifications of whatever publisher you are submitting to. You need to now write a query letter that introduces you as an author, your novel and your level of experience in writing. This should include a brief biography and a list of publishing credits. In the query letter, let the publisher know why your story is different, who will be your target audience and how do you plan to market your novel.
The synopsis should be a 2-4 page summary of the story including the ending. It should be well thought out and follow your plot line from beginning to end. Often this is the first sample of writing that a publisher looks at. A publisher knows if it was thrown together at the last minute. You should take as much time and care with your synopsis as you would with any scene of your novel.
Having a plan of action should your novel get published is an important tool of preparation for you. Let your potential publisher know how you plan to get your name out there. Will you do book signings, contests, chats, online signings, book club readings or placement into independent bookstores. Do you have a website? Do you have any special groups that you know would be interested in this type of novel. This is called a promotional plan and some publisher require it. Whether it is required or not, this is a good tool to develop prior to submission.
There are also a number of things that you should not do when submitting a manuscript. First is to send a manuscript with no query letter or synopsis. Publishers like to get an idea of what the story is about before plunging into a novel.
Second, make sure that the guidelines are followed. If the publisher specifies that all submissions should be double spaced in times new roman font, saved as an RTF file. Do not send something that is single spaced in a gothic font saved as a PDF.
Third, do not tell the publisher how wonderful your work is, or how much you think he or she will enjoy it. Stick strictly to the facts.
Fourth, do not write the publisher over and over again asking if they have yet read your manuscript. Most publishers will list an average response time. Only after that time has passed should you contact the publisher for an update.
Finally, when your Manuscript, make sure that your document is appropriately labeled with your name, pen name, title of the book, word count and email address. When manuscripts are sent by email, your document is often saved in another location. This manuscript could quite possibly be passed to various staff within the company in order to find the line that best fits your title. If there is not identifying information on the Manuscript itself, a publisher can not respond to you.
Overall, when you are submitting your work, remember be professional, be kind, be respectful and be patient. The publisher is working hard to review works and put out the best quality pieces to our public. As an author, it is your job to follow some simple guidelines when submitting a manuscript in order to allow the process to go smoothly and your work to be accepted.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/what-not-to-do-when-submitting-your-manuscript-to-a-publisher-181674.html
About the Author
Jordana Ryan is the author of the new
romance novel, No Matter What (Amira Press).
Tagged with: help • manuscript • writing
Filed under: Uncategorized
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An agent who wants an eclusive submission wants to have time to review the manuscript before deciding whether or not to represent it. He doesn’t want another agent, who might have fewer manuscripts or more employees to call you with an offer first . He looses time and money when this happens. Most agents accept that authors do submit simultaneous submission. It is a good idea that if have submitted to more than one agent and sign a contract with one of them, that you notify the others that your work is no longer under consideration.
It is suggested that if you agree to an exclusive, you set a date that the agent has to make his decision by before you can/will send the submission to another agent. If he doesn’t like the limitation, choose another agent to send to, otherwise you could be left waiting months for him to get around to reading the manuscript (time in which another agent might have accepted and sold it).
Sifeettall – exclusive submission usually refers to the time before the agent represents your work, not when they are trying to sell it to editors (this would be a breach of contract that you signed with the agent and there may be penalties, legal and/or financial, depending on the terms of that contract (you have cost them time, money, and reputation). When more than one agent has a contract for the same work, they will find – agents do talk to one another and deals are listed in the trade papers, so they will find out, and your chances of getting representation with anyone in the future is slim).
A query letter is different from a synopsis. The query is like a teaser, kind of like back cover copy that makes the person reading it want to know more. It should say Who your character is, What happens to them, the Choices they have to make, and the Consequences of those choices. The Query Shark has excellent examples of what a query should (and shouldn’t) look like.
I have no idea what you mean by the query letter being an eqo (ego?) massage.
The synopsis tells everything that happens in the book from beginning to end, without leaving anything out. It’s a different animal from the query. Nathan Bransford has a post telling how to do that.
The sample chapter (which should be the first chapter) will give the agent an idea of your style.
Usually it’s not a good idea. Check the publisher guidelines. Some say they are okay with multiple submissions as long as you let them know. Simply state in your query letter that you’ve submitted the work to another publisher or agent for their consideration. It’s always a good idea to keep on the good side of publishing professionals by being up front. You don’t want to burn any bridges.
Good luck!
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Is it okay to submit a manuscript to more than one publisher at a time?
I have found a lot of good information in the writers market for my novel. I am aware of the individual guidelines for submission each publisher may have. However I’m not sure if I should wait for replies one at a time or submit to multiple publishers all at once.
What is an exclusive submission?
I read submission guidelines for a literary agent, and it tells me that it prefers a exclusive manuscript. What is that?
How do I submit a manuscript to HarperTeen?
I want to submit a novel-length manuscript to HarperTeen (an imprint of HarperCollins) but nowhere on their website do they have submission guidelines! Does anybody have a link? Or something similar?
Question about submission guidelines–quite confused, answer from an industry insider preferred?
In a few months, I am planning on submitting a sample of my manuscript to a literary agency. Here are the requests of this agency:
Query Letter
Synopsis of the novel
A sample chapter
A brief resume
It seems that these requirements will get into the mundane area of redundancy. To my knowledge, isn’t a query letter a massive eqo massage (especially if the synopsis is requested to be separate), and a person without credentials–such as myself–wouldn’t a brief resume be completely useless? Should I just not bother with the resume? Perhaps the agent will get the idea that it is my first work just by the absence of it. Or will this show that I am unable to follow protocol?
Some questions about query/manuscript submissions?
1. The submission guidelines say ‘Please send us a one-page query letter, along with the first ten pages pasted in the body of the message’ so does that mean ten pages in MS word? or what?
2. Also, I have 2 completed books, if I send both of them, to different agents of course, will it affect my chances. They’re both different genres.
Thanks x