A Publisher's Conversation with Authors: Essential Actions for Getting Past an Editor's First Cut

 

It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side.

Today's topic looks at how editors view incoming submissions from authors and what you need to do to get past the first cut. In my experience, very few first-time authors do what is needed (or know what it is they need to do, or, in some cases, want to do it), and, hence, only about 10% make it past our first cut at MSI Press LLC. 

What authors who want to be taken seriously need to is quite simple and, at least for us, quite clear. Believe it or not, some authors miss the boat on all these not-so-hard things:

• Individualize the submission.
• Like many publishers. we accept simultaneous submissions. Duplicate submissions, however, do not generally make the cut. The difference is individualization. A letter that is clearly a one-size-fits all copy sent to a dozen or more publishers does not get read past the first line or two. We are not out looking for authors; authors are out looking for publishers. Make the minimal effort, at least, to know the name of the publisher to whom you are submitting and send an individually addressed letter even if much of the remainder is boiler plate.
• Know the publisher's genres and interests. Every publisher has a limited number of genres. Do not send us fiction; we publish only non-fiction, and our website says so. We are not going to make an exception because our marketing is set up for the genres that we publish. Likewise, do not send us Satanic topics; all our spiritual publications are focused on the light side (God, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha), not on the dark side, of spirituality. Do not believe that you are special and that you will change our mind. It has not happened in 20 years. It is not going to happen today. Again, our marketing is not set up to handle books that radically differ from our other books. Ditto for nearly all publishers. 
• Know the publisher's catalogue. Explain how your book fits in. Which books are similar? How does yours dovetail? (That makes marketing your book easier.) When you can make that connection for a publisher, you may not make the final cut, but you are very likely to make the first cut.
• Publishers have submission guidelines. Follow them. Sometimes, I will take the time, if a book looks promising, to send a submission template to an author whose submission does not meet our guidelines. Sometimes, I am too busy for that. Our guidelines are at our website and easy to find. That said, they are also easy to follow, but some of the more "difficult" and important sections of the proposal (such as platform and marketing options are omitted. That will also move a book out of first-cut consideration. We would not ask those questions if they were not importat to us and skipping them gives us a queasy feeling that an author might not take needed input.
• Get help with your writing, no matter how talented you are.
• Sure, you are a writing professor. Great. And sure, you ran your book through a spellchecker. (You would be surprised at how many authors do not even do that.) I guarantee that there will still be typos. No one can adequately proofread his/her own work.
• You also need to have the view of a future reader to see what leaps in logid or missing or whether your expression is clear to someone other than yourself. I have published two dozen books, about a half dosen of them with the two most respected academic publishers in the world. I always send out my book (including ones I am editing) to as many colleagues as possible, but at least to 10-12. They find things I do not or maybe even cannot see or consider. My sister-in-law, a K-12 teacher, read the manuscript for one of my most popular books and sent it backed marked up, with the note, "I had to look up the underlined words; the highlighted-in-yellow words I could not find in my unabridged dictionary" -- important information since my target audience was people like her.
• And, if you are not a writing professor, have an editor check for bad grammar, spelling errors that the computer might not correct, and flat writing. Inexperienced authors often write as if they themselves are the reader (like diary entries), using the verb "to be" to the exclusion of much more exciting verbs and thus failing to engage the reader. Over use of the linking verb, to be, can be a stumbling stone as well for authors who have written academic tomes and are now turning to lay works, such as memoirs or self-help books. A good editor will catch and fix this tendency.
• Very important, before you waste an editor's time (either someone editing your work or an acquisitions editor for a publisher), get your punctuation in order. Incorrect punctuation is my pet peeve; new authors all too frequently have no idea where commas belong and do not belong. Get hold of The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, and follow the rules presented in this easy-to-read little book. You probably used it in seventh grade. It is still useful today!
• Be prepared to be a published author.
• Published authors know where to find their potential readers. They know the market. And the market is not "millions of people read self-help books" or  "half the world is made up of women, so that is a huge market for my woman's book." You are not telling the publisher anything helpful with these large numbers; only a small percentage of these potential readers are going to be interested in your book. Know who they and where to find them. Don't know? Then, do the research! And don't send a proposal until you can be very specific about who will be interested in your book and how you will be reaching them. An early submission, without this research, is a waste of your time and the editor's, and the delete button will be easy to push.
• Have a platform. It does not matter what it is, just have one. Put up a website. Start running posts about your book-in-progress on your platform regularly, building a readymade market for when the book is released. Come to the editor with this kind of information: how long you have had your platform, how many followers (50K is a very good figure for average sales but few first-time authors will have that many -- just be honest and keep gathering followers).
• Check your ego before you take your first step.
• If an editor suggests that you need to make some changes in your writing, be open to that possibility. A defensive response that essentially calls the editor stupid for not realizing what a wonderful author you are will not take you past the first cut. Editors need to be able to work productively with authors, and a defensive response is a tell-tale sign that this will not be possible. It does not matter how good your book is if an editor feels that you will be a "difficult" author. There are plenty of pleasant authors with good books so passing up yours is easy. And no, you do not know more than the editor. Period.
• If an editor takes the time to give you feedback, that is a positive, not a negative, thing. Editors rarely have time to do this, and when they do, it can be very important for making your book become a reality -- with that publisher or another. Recognize it as the valuable thing it is.

The bottom line is that simply sending your manuscript or a description of it to a publisher is a waste of your time and any invested money and a waste of an editor's time. Do your homework. Send the editor what the publishing house asks for. Know your market, and show you know it. Be prepared to be an author by establishing your credentials online and, if warranted, in your professional field, and ditch the ego. We all have an ego, but it rarely helps any of us. 

Lesson for today's Tuesday talk: A submission is hard work; it takes research, knowledge, and preparation. Do it well, and you may make the cut. Do it poorly, and you will be sending in submission for years.

Read more posts about publishing HERE.

The Tuesday talks reflect real discussions between the management of MSI Press LLC and our own authors or those would-be authors who come through our doors but don't make the cut--yet. If you have a topic you would like addressed, leave the question in the comment section. Chances are, in our 18 years of publishing first-time and experiences authors, we have had a conversation with one of our authors that we can share with you.

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