Mulligan!

Thank you for your informative blog which, you wouldn’t be able to tell from my last behavior, I have read in full. Of course, just when I should be able to follow your advice to the ‘T’, I had a bit of a brain freeze, I guess. I sent off my submission, synopsis, and all to an agent and editor and forgot most of what I learned. No excuse, really. I don’t know what I was thinking.


#1- I sent an early version that had only one difference, but it was big. A paragraph from Chapter 4 had not been moved to Chapter 1. This paragraph sets up the suspense for the book in an earlier time frame. Since I only sent chapter 1-3, that is kind of big.


#2- I sent my outline instead of my synopsis. This will be obvious since it tells the whole story, and not too imaginatively either. Yikes!


#3 – Then, when I got home from the post office, I saw the SASE I meant to include, sitting on the kitchen table where I left it.


Now, I’m not really an idiot, although it sounds like it. And, OK, I feel like one. I’m wondering if I should just let it go. I have the urge to resubmit, because I made a mistake, and oh well, that happens. I do want to put my best foot forward, however, and I think I have a really good book. I also don’t want the people I sent the book to, to waste their time trying to figure out ‘what the heck?’ Right? Then, again, I wonder, geesh…is sending it again another dumb move?


Do you think I should resubmit, or does this kind of stuff happen. Are agents and editors very understanding of an author’s bad day, I guess?

Go ahead and try resubmitting.  If you can make the explanation in your cover letter sound like you sound here--ie, human, humble, and with a sense of humor--and not like someone who might be perennially scattered of mind and disorganized, then you stand a fair chance of being forgiven.

Sitting On Your Hands Is Never Part of Your Job

I submitted some work to a major U.S. publisher almost a year ago. A few months later, I received a personalized, lengthy, warm email from an editor who indicated she liked my work but that she wasn't ready to take on the project at that point. She did suggest some changes and invited me to send it back to her. I revised and re-submitted. A few months went by and I emailed her again to check the status. She replied that she hadn't yet had a chance to get to it. A few months later, I emailed again. She wrote back: "I need more time to review this submission." And it's been a while since then...How do I interpret this? Is my story just collecting dust under her desk when I could be actively sending my work elsewhere? 

YES.

 Or might this mean that there may be some genuine interest and that I should just be patient?

YES.

I don't know how many times I've gotten variations on this question.  DO be patient.  And DO keep submitting elsewhere.  The changes that she asked for should be exclusive to her... for maybe six months, to be generous.  Until then, keep submitting the previous draft elsewhere.  After that, submit the revision (assuming you think it's stronger) elsewhere.

Editors can take a goddamn long time to just LOOK at something, at which point they may be very excited about it.  An interminable wait may not mean that nothing's ever going to happen.  But you should NOT be waiting for that day (if it ever comes) to KEEP SUBMITTING.  

KEEP SUBMITTING.

The Sound of Failure Calls Her Name

One prevailing sentiment among writing forums is to hold off submitting until your book represents the best that it can be.
But what does that mean when there is no objective standard by which to measure your book?

1. TIME
Set the damn thing aside for awhile.  It is SO easy to be SO excited about something you've just finished, or SO tired of working on it that you just want to start submitting.  Give it a little time in the cask to age, and then look at it and see if it's still exciting... or still tiresome.  Most likely, you'll notice a few things that need tweaking, and then it'll be ready. 

2. CRITIQUE
A crit group--a good one--lets you see your manuscript the way your reader will.  A crit group will point out that an important bit was unclear in chapter 1, and you'll be able to avoid the confusion that might make an editor give up on your book too soon.  A crit group will tell you your spelling isn't terribly consistent.  A crit group will nudge you to develop your characters more, or to cut the chapter in which nothing happens.  A good crit group saves the editor the large and time-consuming broad-strokes editing that may make the difference between something she can commit to and something that is just too rough.

3. SELF KNOWLEDGE
Is your spelling crap? Do you tend to confuse homophones? If you can't trust yourself to clean the manuscript up, get someone else to do it who can. Lots of little mistakes like that make you seem kind of illiterate, when in fact you may simply be dyslexic.  Unless you sometimes lose your hairbrush in your hair, you know that first impressions make a difference.  The best writers to work with are the ones who know their weaknesses and their strengths, and work to ameliorate the one as much as they work to showcase the other.

Once you have checked these things off, it is time to remind yourself that:

4. POSITIVITY and ACTION
It's time to try the book out on people and submit it.  Maybe it's not PERFECT.  So what.  Keep working on other things, and keep learning. If you let yourself be the kind of person to fuss over one manuscript for ages without working on anything else or submitting anything, (a) editors are going to hate you, and (b) you're going to hate yourself.  Failure to be published is not nearly as soul-crushing as failure to even try.

There's a Signpost Up Ahead

A well-known agent sent out my novel to 9 publishers 3 months ago and says she has not heard a peep since. How long does this process normally take? 

1. There is no "normal".
2. Forever.  Or at least it seems like it.  If your agent is well-known, then he/she should be able to tell you what's normal for the editors he/she submitted to.

I know things things vary, but realistically, wouldn’t I have had at least 1 rejection by now?

You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call "Publishing".

Quick Answers: Freelance Editors, Trends, and Overthinking

When an agent or editor asks for a synopsis or the first ten pages to be pasted in the email, should I double space as if it's a hard copy, or is there a preferred method for email formatting?

This is another case of overthinking submissions.  Do whatever makes it easily readable, and leave it at that.

I’ve heard that publishers are currently looking for vampire and action manuscripts. I’m not interested in placating a fickle trend, but I am curious as to whether or not you think the recent downturn in the publishing industry might be leading to a significant (long-term) shift in what sells.

Let me congratulate you on not writing to trend.  But the answer to your question is no.

I have written a novel (fiction/semi-romantic). I would like to find someone professional who would read it and tell me how to proceed from this point. If you have any specific advice it would be greatly appreciated.

Some people do hire freelance developmental editors, but I think you could probably get as much help from a good critique group.   Readers, do you have thoughts?  Or recommendations of freelance editors?

Quick Answers: Blurbs, Library Credits, and Print Runs

If I'm shopping a fiction manuscript to an editor (or agent), how helpful would it be, really, to include a quote from a multi-published, bestselling queen/king/first lady/high priest of the genre? Assuming the writing is solid but you're on the fence about, say, content and marketability, would having a cover blurb in hand for a non-contracted novel sway you in any way? Can a blurb sell a book to the industry pros?
And if that bestselling author has had a policy of not providing blurbs for a while but is making an exception, should that bit of information be included in the query or would it come across sounding too hard-sell and desperate?

If you've got a blurb from one of the big writers in the genre, yes, that carries weight.  It still might not sell the book to an editor who just doesn't like it, but it might really make a difference to an editor who's on the fence. 

The other day, someone told me that authors get some sort of credit that translates into a payout when readers check out their books from the library. I've tried to do a google search but was unable to find anything useful (at least in regards to the US). Do you know if this is true and how this works?

This may be true for digital books; I'm not very familiar with how that works at libraries.  But regular books?  That's RIDICULOUS.   Libraries buy books the same way everybody else does: they pay for THAT COPY and that copy only.

UPDATE: As many many of my readers have informed me (who knew I had such an international audience?), there IS a way for libraries in Canada, Australia, Germany, and the UK (and maybe other places) to pay royalties to authors.  The system (which you can learn more about in the comments) sounds so common-sensical that I can't believe we don't do it in THIS country.
Thank you, my readers, for the enlightenment!

What is a good-sized print run on average? I've been given a very rough figure of 15,500. Is this a good figure?

That's just fine.  Bear in mind, though, that until the figure stops being "rough" it's essentially hypothetical.

Does the Gold Medalist in Swimming Need to Know Gymnastics?

Do you think editors and agents have different (lower) standards for writing that's submitted by an author-illustrator as opposed to someone who's "just" an author?
As you can imagine, I am a writer who can't draw a cube.
Some of the feedback I get from my agent has really challenged me to reach for something a lot higher with my writing. Then I see some books that are being published, and it's like they got some kind of pass. I feel like if I sent my agent a story like that, he'd send it right back to me and wouldn't even consider showing it to publishers.
Are the standards different for an author-illustrator if the art is good enough to sell an otherwise lackluster story?

If a submission wins me over partly with writing and partly with art, should I think less of it than the submission that won me over solely with writing? Both verbal storytelling and visual storytelling are talents, and both are strengths in a book.

So the answer to your question is yes, in some cases it's ok that the writing isn't as wonderful as in other manuscripts since there's such strength in the art.

It's not ok to feel these people got a pass-- they still had to submit something powerful. Just like you do. If you sent me a manuscript whose development of setting was non-existent but whose plot-development and characters were wonderful and made the manuscript worthwhile all by themselves, it would be ridiculous for me to reject it, right? Just because your strengths aren't what some other people's strengths are?

Don't think of yourself as being in the same race with author-artists-- think of yourself as being in the same Olympics. If you both end up on the winners' stand, it will be for different skills, but your accomplishments will both be worthy of the honor.

Quick Answers!

I have a fantastic story and concept for a series of childrens picture books. I have several books in rough draft and one completed. Do you recommend that I complete the other books and consider them all a single transcript or just submit the first picture book (20 page) with a reference to the series?

First book only. Please see the tag 'series and sequels' in my sidebar.

I was hoping you could answer my question as I've searched around and haven't been able to find an answer. I submitted my story to a few online critique groups in hopes of getting it polished up for submission. I've been a bit paranoid about submitting since I found
all these publishing and agent blogs online. But after getting my critiques back, no one could agree, on anything. And it was pretty split down the middle on who liked and didn't like it as a whole. I'm just curious, that if I'm getting such a wide range of comments, could it mean that this story is lost cause? Or do I need to seek out some other readers?

Well, here's the helpful thing about the people you meet in critique groups: They're showing you what they're writing. That means you can tell if some of them are really not such great writers, and so possibly not fantastic judges of writing, or if they have a lot of opinions about picture books but don't write / read picture books themselves. Maybe you should try some more crit partners before you decide one way or another.

I had part of a ms critiqued at a conference recently. The editor liked it and asked to see the full. Between the time I submitted this ms for critique and the actual meeting (about 4 months) I decided to revise the story. I explained that to the editor at the critique session and she said she was looking forward to seeing it when it was done. Within a month’s time of the critique meeting I submitted the revised ms to my agent for review. He made some good suggestions which I followed. I resubmitted a few weeks later and now agent has told me he doesn’t have time to reread it again for several months. What do you think of that, and should I be concerned that if I wait too long to get the ms back to interested editor that that interest will wane?

Several months? Um, yeah. Send that to the editor now.

What Is This Publishers Marketplace You Speak Of?

I am currently searching the 'net for agents in the children's books (picture book genre). A few terms I've noticed in particular begs to be further defined. When an agent specifies "Picture Books (by an author/illustrator)" or "picture books by author/artists" are they saying they want the author to also be the illustrator?

Yes. This is because there's very little money to be made, usually, for picture book authors. Agents get a small percentage of that little money, and many of them just feel it isn't enough.

Or would I be okay just sending in the query as the author minus the art skills?

Not to those agents. But there are others who rep picture book authors.

Also, when an agent (that accepts picture books) explains their submission requirements for a variety of genres (ie novelists send in first ten pages) but leaves out the details for picture books, what should one do? Send in the picture book manuscript?

One should look up that agent's sales in Publishers Marketplace and see whether they represent picture books at all.

The Unsolicited Recycling Bin

Are editors reading unsolicited picture books anymore? I used to get those rejected mss. back in my thoughtfully provided SASE. If I'd put a hair between pages 2 and 3, I at least knew (if the hair was missing) that someone had shuffled the paper. Now editors are responding "only if interested." My question is--are most editors simply unloading all these unsolicited mss. right into the circular file?
I realize you can only tell me for sure what's happening at your house. But you do communicate with other members of the editorial species. Have you heard anything? Say, for example, "Yahoo! I don't have to read manuscripts about Willimena the Wave anymore."
I'm a well-published pb author who doesn't want to give a piece of my paltry advance to an agent. But if my suspicion is true, I'm thinking I'm going to have to--just to get a pair of eyes to glance at the first paragraph or so of my mss.
Please tell me that this is just one of those paranoid thoughts that afflicts insomniac authors, and that someone (the janitor?) is reading those piles of unsolicted pbs.

The houses and editors who say they take unsolicited submissions are still reading them. There's really not a reason in the world for them to lie about that. There are fewer and fewer of them these days, so an agent really isn't a bad idea. But processing slush is a lot of work, and we aren't doing it just for the upper-body exercise.

Can I Submit Now? Ok, How About Now? Or Now?

I have submitted an unsolicited picture-book manuscript to a house that accepts these (with a policy of no reply unless there is interest). What do you think would be an acceptable waiting period before submitting a second manuscript?

Just long enough so that they don't clip the two manuscripts together (in which case probably only the manuscript on top would get read). Give it a week to be safe.

Why You Want the Intern to Read Your Manuscript

From the intern over at Bookends Lit. She's right!

The editors and agents who are Established and Experienced and who you Really Want to Read Your Manuscript? They skim and discard the slush so fast it would make the faint-of-heart weep. An enthusiastic intern (with smart opinions) can make us actually read the whole manuscript.

3 Questions: Following Up, Giving Up, and Saddling Up

I am in the process of submitting my manuscript for my second children's picture book to agents. I got a solid referral to a high-profile agent. The referral came from one of the agent's award-winning illustrators. I sent my letter and submission but haven't heard anything back after about two weeks. Should I follow-up? If so, should I follow-up with e-mail, or snail mail?

I would like to resume submitting my ms to other agents if he's not interested, and one agent had suggested revisions, so I don't want to keep her waiting.

What should I do?

A couple weeks is a very short time for most agents, so it would be nice if you'd give him a little more time before emailing to follow up.

Unless you told him that it was an exclusive submission, though, I would not wait to continue submitting elsewhere.

I have written what I think to be the cutest little children's picture book on boogers. However I keep getting rejected. With books like Captain Underpants, I thought my rhyming book would be at least acceptable material for a picture book, kids love things funny and gross. One potential agent even said it was "cute". Should I scrap the project all together?

Wow, an agent said it was cute?

I'm sorry, sometimes the sarcasm just comes out before I can stop it. When you've gotten a few more rejections, you'll start realizing that a lot of the soft words agents and editors use to cushion the blow are about as meaningful as feathers. The flip side of this is that a lot of the hard words that deliver the blow are meaningless, too. A rejection, whatever the words used, means nothing more than "no".

I can't tell you why your particular manuscript is getting rejected. Possibly agents are worried that since picture books are bought far more often by parents than are chapter books (Captain Underpants rose to popularity on the spending habits of children), the topic is too likely to foster bad behavior and conversation no one wants at the dinner table. Still, there are examples-- David Greenberg's Slugs-- of picture books that manage to be popular and disgusting. So perhaps your rhyme is not as solid as it needs to be?

Yes, after a certain number of rejections, it's probably time to put that manuscript in a drawer somewhere... but it's a pretty big number. Good luck with it.

I have a question that I'm thinking you could answer. I have a cowboy poem that is Christmas oriented. I envision it in a children's book format, although the poem itself is equally appealing to adults. So, what I'm thinking is a few lines of the poem on a page along with an illustration. My question I guess is will this work, and if so, how do I go about submitting something like that and to whom?

I cannot tell from this whether it will work. You'll need to read a bunch of picture books, and read about picture book page counts to be sure you have enough action to carry the poem through a standard picture book length.

As for who you should submit to and how, this is research you need to do. I'm sure there are authors in my readership who have some ideas-- and authors (and agents) generally know more about publisher submission guidelines and various publisher tastes than editors do. But market research is an important learning process for new authors, so you need to do this work. Good luck, partner.

All Signs Point Toward Needing to Read the Signs

How should the text of signs be formatted in a fiction manuscript? I've seen it in all caps but I am not sure if this is correct. For example -They drove past the rickety WELCOME TO TULSA sign.

You are over-thinking this. If you desperately want to be correct, you could look it up in the Chicago Manual of Style, which is what most people use. But most editors will look benignly on however you format such a thing-- as long as it's clear what's the text of the sign and what isn't, it's fine. The copyeditor will adjust it to the house style later in the process.

In the days of yore, when email was exciting, there were some who'd always advise us to send partials with SASEs. Part of the thinking behind this was to control who got to see your MS. Has that culture of mailing queries and partials completely gone away now?

Of course, I realize that - in theory - once the MS is out of your door, it can always be copied and leak out (say, if you're Dan Brown or J. K. Rowling). But how does the author know her MS was read and rejected? That it didn't drown under the giant swells of other partials?

It seems like you have more than one question.

If one of your questions is "How do I know my manuscript won't be copied or stolen or something?", please refer to the pythons.

If one of your questions is, "Do people still want a partial MS and an SASE?", please refer to individual publishers' submission guidelines.

But to "But how does the author know her MS was read and rejected? That it didn't drown under the giant swells of other partials?", the answer is a question: Did you submit your manuscript to a publishing house that accepts slush? If yes, then assume it was read and rejected. If no, then assume it drowned.

Changes of Heart and Character

I have a book which is now in the hands of a publisher. It was recently submitted so it will take quite a bit of time to hear back about publishing or not. When I submitted the manuscript it included a character that now the creator of the book wants omitted. (I am basically the ghostwriter and the one who submitted the book...it's a long story.) Now what? Do I resubmit a manuscript? Wait for a yeah or nay by the publisher? If the publisher likes the story, do I still have the option of saying the character wants to be omitted? The creator is very attached to his book and refuses to bend on this point. So, does that make the manuscript now void?

No, not necessarily. I mean, it's not one of the main characters, is it?

I'd suggest you wait to hear from the publisher, and if there's interest, let them know immediately about this change. Most likely they won't have a problem with it.

And if they do, then you can assume they wouldn't have wanted the revised manuscript, can't you?

The Black Hole Has "Requested" Your Manuscript

I've had a middle-grade manuscript sitting (or standing, or whatever manuscripts do while they wait) at a small regional publisher for going on nine months now. It was requested last summer just a few days after I queried, and I received an enthusiastic confirmation e-mail a couple of days later. After six months of silence, I sent a brief follow-up to check on the status and got no reply. I've since seen on the Web site that the person to whom I was asked to direct the manuscript is no longer with the publisher. I would assume that when the intern/associate/whatever who was originally assigned the manuscript departs, the manuscript remains viable until I'm notified otherwise. Is it OK to e-mail the managing editor, who originally requested the full manuscript, again? How might I word the e-mail to engender an actual response? I don't want to be a stalker, but this isn't a slush pile situation. They asked for my book.

You're not being a stalker. They ought to respond.

However, one of the staff leaving often means his/her to-read pile is utterly orphaned. (Possibly even orphaned into the recycling bin.) Anyone helping to shoulder the work that staff member left behind is going to have more than enough to do with the already-signed-up manuscripts.

I would suggest you do email the managing editor, but there are no magic words to make this a priority or ensure a response. Meantime, you should be submitting elsewhere. 9 months is ridiculous.

Warning: Objects in Mirror May Be Less Self-Editing Than They Appear

After editing my manuscript multiple times, I sent it to a professional editor for a final polish. In my submission letters to editors and/or agents, should I mention that I have had my ms professionally edited? Of course, the ms must stand or fall on its own, and I don't expect that mentioning a professional editor will give the ms any special advantage, but are editors/agents interested in knowing that a writer has gone the extra mile to make his/her ms the best it can be?

No. Don't say anything about this... unless you plan not to send your next novel to a freelance editor, and to surprise your publisher with a less-polished-than-the-first-one manuscript. Then we would like some warning.
Thanks!

Quick Answers: Age Groups, Beginning Illustrators, Librarians

I'm about to start querying my novel (workshopped, re-written, etc.) to agents and feel I've put together a pretty good query. But, I stumble over how to define the novel. It's a 55K word urban fantasy with twins that turn 13 in the first chapter. It seems to me that the characters maturity (or lack thereof) plus a few nonsensical elements place it as a mid-grade, but I wonder if the age of the characters make it YA. Is there a sharp line delineating the catagories? Or, perhaps more likely, are there widely accepted defining points that apply to this situation? Should I send out x number of queries calling it a MG, and y number calling it YA and see which fare better?

There isn't a distinct border between the age groups-- or, that is to say, some people's distinct border is different from other people's distinct border, like neighbors who are always arguing about the property line. Take your best guess, and stop worrying about it--if we like what we read, we'll forgive it easily if you think it's MG and we think it's YA. That's a slight tweak in the terminology-- no big deal.

What we don't forgive as easily is if a person thinks their "fictional novel" is for preschoolers or something like that-- some designation that's so far off base that we have to worry about their relationship with reality, and what that will mean for the publishing process. People with low reality IQs are a huge pain in the ass.

I am a childrens book illustrator, however have not yet published my first book. To be completely honest - I don't quite know where to start.
So far my research has shown the first step (after completing your work of course) is sending out query letters. How should an Illustrators query letter look?
If you could offer any advice on how to get started, it would be really be a great help...I just know I have some wonderful illustrations to offer the world!

If what you're trying to sell is a book, then regardless of whether it's text and illustration or a wordless book, your query letter should look the same as any other author's.
If you're trying to get illustration work with samples from your portfolio, then you should be looking up publisher's art submission guidelines and following those. Possibly you can participate in a portfolio review, and you should definitely have a portfolio up online.

Between 1995 and 2000, I wrote four nonfiction series books for two different publishers. Both publishers seemed happy with my work and asked me to do more. However, just at that time, I started moving up in the ranks of my actual full-time paying job in a library. I made the decision to concentrate on my career and my family, with spare time devoted to reading, rather than writing. The writing I have done during the intervening ten years has been professional in nature: book reviews, journal articles, a book chapter, and a book.
Now I am ready to go back to writing children’s nonfiction. I have several projects I am researching for possible books.
My question: how much do I have to explain my hiatus in publishing when I query editors and agents? If I just say I wrote these four books in the late 90s, will they wonder what’s been going on? I don’t want to over-explain, but I also want them to know that the break was my decision, and not because I couldn’t get anything published.

Do explain very briefly that you've been concentrating on being a librarian in the meanwhile. Not only does that give a reason for your past titles being long out of date (and thus less useful to us as comparisons), it also tells us you're a librarian! We like librarians.

Fear Is So Old-Fashioned, Right?

I'm curious of how the horror genre is holding up in the children's market. Is there room for another R.L. Stine, or is that era past? If not, who would be the best publisher to approach with a middle-grade horror story? Any ideas?

Is that era past? Have you not noticed the hordes of zombies currently overrunning the shelves?

Horror, like any genre, is fairly perennial. Little Brown is doing very well with its Cirque du Freak series. Simon & Schuster just got a Printz Honor for Monstrumologist. Harper could certainly be doing more with the popular Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series, but maybe they're satisfied with those sales. Etc.

I would suggest you do some more market research, and try one of the few publishers who don't currently have a strong horror title or series on their list. And then try the rest of them.

It's an Auction! Or Not.

You have said never to call an editor to check on the status of your query or manuscript submission. Other editors and editorial assistants have said the same thing. Just. Don't. Call. I understand this.

But what does the aspiring author do when a manuscript on multiple submission garners an offer from one publishing house? Presumably they will want to hear back within a reasonably short time frame, and yet, mailing status checks and "Just so you know, I've had an offer/serious interest from another house looking at this manuscript that I sent you a while back," letters and waiting for a response on those can take a WHILE. (Especially if you're mailing things from Canada to the US, as I am. Snail mail is not far off.)

How does one go about this without making an interested publisher wait too long, angering the other editors who might be considering her work, and calling anybody?

The question is whether you've submitted to a slush pile or not. (For clarity, I am not talking about whether you put an editor's name on the submission-- most of those end up in the slush pile, regardless.)

If you submitted to the slush pile, don't bother informing other publishers. The chances that they know where your manuscript is, much less have read it yet, are fairly infinitesimal. (Sorry. This is one of the reasons people get an agent.) Just go with the offer you've got, if it's reasonable, or if it's not, say no.

If you have submitted to an editor (i.e., because of a relationship with the editor, or because you attended a conference at which she spoke and she offered to read submissions following the conference, or some other reason), then it would be acceptable and prudent to email that editor and let her know you have interest elsewhere.

Meanwhile, let the publisher making the offer know that you just need to check in with the other people who have the manuscript, and then you'll get back to them. If you don't hear back from the other publishers within a week, you should go ahead with the offer on the table. If any of the other publishers do want to enter bidding, they should be willing to get an offer on the table in a matter of days, not weeks.