A Kossack's Guide to Book Publishing - part 5 [updated]

Submitting a Manuscript
There have been a whole bunch of requests for an entry in this series covering the basics of how to submit a manuscript to a publisher. So this is going to be a long but fairly general nuts-and-bolts kind of introductory segment, with the more detailed nuances of book proposal writing, finding market reports, and such left for later segments. Most of what I talk about here is true for submitting both books to publishers and stories to magazines, and it's similar to what you'll be submitting to a prospective literary agent.

What You're Submitting
For books, you're generally submitting some combination of a cover letter, a proposal, an outline or plot summary, and several sample chapters. For a short story, you're generally submitting a cover letter and the complete story. In either case, your submission should be in proper manuscript format (this may seem trivial, but it's very important) and in accordance with that particular publisher's or magazine's guidelines.

If you don't follow the publisher's guidelines and submit the material in proper manuscript format, your work is likely to be rejected out of hand. At best, the editor will be annoyed and predisposed not to like it, since you're making extra work for her. You're asking a company to publish your book: Don't expect that publisher to change the way they do business specifically to accomodate you, unless you're already a giant best-seller. (And even if you are a best-seller, if you go the prima donna route, you're likely to get dropped by the publisher as soon as your sales drop a little bit, where they might stick with a less high-maintenance writer.) The initial submission is the first hint the editor gets at how well you take direction and editing; if you don't follow directions before you have a contract, what are the chances you're going to afterward?

I'm not trying to sound intimidating here. Proper manuscript format is actually really easy to follow, as are most publisher's guidelines.


Proper Manuscript Format
Manuscript format is designed to be as easy as possible to read. The theory behind it is that as editors, we only have one pair of eyes, and they have to last for a long time. Anything that taxes them unnecessarily is bad.

Do not try to impress the editor with brightly colored paper, confetti, glitter, or things that spring out of the box when it's opened. No script fonts, half-dead toner cartridges, or oddly colored ink. Your creativity should come through in your writing, not in your formatting.

While different publishers want slight variations on this, the basics of proper manuscaript format are as follows:

Text should be double-spaced, 12-point type in a text font (preferably Courier or Times New Roman, but Bookman, Palatino, or another easily readable font is fine, too).

Use one side of the page only (no matter how long the book is). Use standard 8 1/2 by 11 paper if you're in the U.S., or whatever the standard is where you're writing.

Margins should be set at one inch. Every page after the first should have a header on the upper right-hand corner containing: your name/book or story title/page number. (If you're working in Word, you can do this by going to File/Page Setup, and checking "different first page" or "First page special.")

Use either italic or underlining for emphasis, but not both. (They mean the same thing typographically. Underlining was used for italics in the days when typewriters could only use one font, and the habit stuck. Lots of practices in publishing are done a particular way because that's the way Gutenberg happened to do them, and the habit stuck.)

If it's a story and it's more than five pages long, send it flat in a large envelope. If it's shorter you can fold it and send  it in a normal envelope if you'd like.

The first page should look something like this:

Legal Name                                                      Approximate word count
Address
Phone
E-mail address
Social Security Number










                                                         Title

                              by Whatever Name You're Writing Under

Text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text

In other words:

George W. Bush                                                                About 110,000 words
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500
[phone]
[e-mail]
123-45-6789










                                                      Leaving Laura

                                                  by G. W. Bush

"More, more!" Condi cried out, writhing against me.
    I could feel my manhood throbbing. My sweat smelled of vodka, intermingled with Condi's distinctive scent.
    Suddenly a phone rang. The special phone. Not again, I thought.
    Condi fell back against the pillows and sighed in frustration.
    I took a pull from the open vodka bottle before picking up the old-fashioned rotary dial black phone.
    "This better be important, Karl."
    "It's more than that. It's that Markos character and those pesky bloggers. They're at it again."
    His ominous words chilled my blood.

You get the idea.... The reason for the Social Security Number is that the publisher needs it to cut you a check. If you don't trust a publisher enough to send them your SSN, why are you sending them your story?

Publisher's guidelines may vary slightly from this format, but they will all be similar. And as SFF.net's Yog (he's also the origin of "money flows toward the writer" mentioned in the Publishing Scams essay) reminds us:

No one ever got rejected for using 12-point Courier.

Publisher's Guidelines
Most publishers and magazines post their guidelines more-or-less prominantly (depending on how swamped they're feeling) on their websites (for example, these basic guidelines from Tor Books and F&SF magazine). Magazine guidelines are also generally listed somewhere in the magazine. Guidelines tell you the specifics of what to put in the package you're submitting. Sometimes they'll give you information on what the publisher is currently looking for or overstocked with.

Another important source of guidelines are several writers who put together market guides geared to working professional writers. Some of these are free and some are market based, and they can cover everything from genre fiction to airline magazines. They also tend to have guidelines for open anthologies, which otherwise you find out about mainly through industry rumor. Kathy Ptacek's Gila Queen's Guide to Markets is a (subscription-based) favorite, and there are also good online sources like The Market List. Market guides also tend to have helpful articles, reviews, etc., but those are pretty much the equivalent of the proverbial articles in Playboy - not saying you won't read them, but probably not the first time through, and it's not why you bought the magazine.

Sources geared mostly to new writers, like Writer's Digest, tend to be less useful; they are often out of date, and less geared to working writers than to newbies.

This may seem like obvious advice, but don't submit to a magazine you've never read. You don't have to subscribe, but at least go to a Border's and leaf through a copy to get a sense of what they actually publish. We ridicule the politicians who go on The Colbert Report without ever having seen the show. You don't want to be their literary equivalent.


Cover Letters
Cover letters should be simple and short. Don't go into every detail in the cover letter - that's what the proposal and outline are for. The purpose of the cover letter is to make me want to read the proposal (the same way the proposal should make me want to read the book). It should be quick and interesting.

John Ordover, longtime editor at Simon & Schuster and now head of Phobos Books, gives an example of the perfect cover letter:

Dear [Editor's Name]

Enclosed please find my [x] thousand word [genre] short story which I feel may be right for [name of magazine]. I enclose an SASE in case I am mistaken.

(If you have any credits, you go on to say)

I have sold [x] stories to [magazine names]

(and if you don't have any you say)

This would be my first professional sale.

I look forward hearing from you.

Sincerely,

[your name]

(SASE is short for self-addressed, stamped envelope, so the publisher can reply to you. If you want your story or book returned, you need to include an envelope and sufficient postage. If you don't want it returned, you need to say "the manuscript is disposable" in your letter.)

The format is similar for books and short stories. You want to be quick and to the point, but give the editor any specific information he or she needs to categorize your story.

Be sure and include credits and any special expertise. Professional credits are best, but non-paid credits count, too. If you've written a long, well-received series on Kos, say so. Ditto for a weekly column at a local newspaper, or an academic article on the same subject as the book. If it's a thriller about neurosurgery and you're a neurosurgeon, say so. While it's important not to oversell yourself, it's just as important not to undersell yourself.

A few other points that John Ordover mentioned as "newbie-markers" when I asked him for permission to
quote his sample cover letter:

1) Don't put a copyright notice on the story.
2) Don't put a computer-generated overly precise word count on the story - ie, 3,927.  Round up to the nearest hundred.
3) Stan Schmidt [editor of Analog] doesn't want cover letters.
4) Address your story to the editor by name.
5) sending a hot young escort to the editor won't get you published, but you will get read and rejected faster.

Book Proposals
Book proposals are the one thing in this segment that are actually harder than they sound. (They'll get their own chapter at some point.) A proposal is a short (about 2-3 pages) "high concept" treatment of the book, covering things like:

What is it that makes the story special? (A tender coming of age story featuring cannibals, the Federal Reserve Board, and 11,000 gallons of whipped cream)

Where does it fit in the current market, with specific comparisons? (It's like Martha Stewart meets Men in Black)

What else is comparable to it on the current market, and why would this book be commercial?

What's the tone of the book?

What does the book contain, and how is it organized?

Who are you? (A short bio, bocusing on why your insight on the topic is distinctive)

The purpose of the proposal isn't just to convince an editor to buy your book, but to give the editor some tools to convince the others sitting in the editorial meeting who are competing for those same scarce publishing slots (a separate diary, which keeps getting pushed back by other requests and dead laptops) as well as the sales force. A good proposal lays the groundwork for a successful book.

It also forces you to think about what the book is. In the course of writing a proposal, you need to solve organizational and structural problems that you might not otherwise have known existed.


Outlines and Plot Summaries
These are both similar, but structured a bit differently. An outline is a step-by-step look at the book, in order. It generally isn't structured the way you learned in middle school (I, A, a, 1, etc.), but might have a paragraph for each chapter of the book. A plot summary is a 3-5 page treatment of the story of the book, which may jump around to give a sense of the overall narrative.

I'm a big believer in outlining, though not all writers work that way. If nothing else, when life gets in the way and you have to put a project down for six months, it's helpful to be able to pick it up again and know where you were trying to go with it, rather than having to start from scratch.

One important thing to remember as a writer, is that the outline works for you, not the other way around. Outlines change and evolve as you're writing. A character who seeemd really minor will force her way, kicking and screaming, into a much bigger role in the plot. A character who seemed really interesting will turn out to be hideously boring to write, and you'll kill him off after three chapters. Just modify the outline with each change. The outline gives you a sense of where you have to foreshadow and introduce certain elements into the story and what end you're working toward, but it's not something you need to follow slavishly.


Sample Chapters
These should be several consecutive chapters from the beginning of the book. Use common sense depending on the lengths of your chapters. The average chapters are 15-20 pages, meaning the publisher wants about a 50-page sample of your work if they ask for three chapters. If your chapters are 2 pages long, include more. If your chapters are 150 pages long, include fewer.




One last piece of advice, once again quoting from SFF.net's Yog:

The only word you absolutely, positively have to spell right every single time is the editor's name.

Anyway, assuming your writing is good, if you follow these guidelines, you'll start the game ahead of about 80% of the other submissions. It still may not sell if it's not what the editor's looking for, or if the market you're selling to is overstocked in what you're writing, but it will maximize your chances of getting your work a friendly and receptive read.

If you'd like more details on any aspect of how to submit manuscripts, a great place to start is the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Association) page of Articles on Writing.


The Rest of the "How Publishing Works" Series

The series so far:

Part 1 - Why bad things happen to good books.
Part 2 - Avoiding publishing scams.
Part 3 - Literary conventions (with an emphasis on SF Conventions).
Part 4 - Book packagers.
Part 5 - Submitting a manuscript.
Part 6 - Publishing lists.
Part 7 - Literary agents.

NOTE: If you have a question about something written earlier in the series, feel free to post it there. I will continue to moniter the earlier diaries.




Supposedly, the dead laptop is coming back today, much restored by its trip to computer Lourdes. So I should be able to post these entries a bit more regularly up until August 8 (our local Lamont-Lieberman showdown), after which I'll be traveling for a couple weeks before I start teaching classes again. Somewhere in there I need to finish the last bits of this current book, or my agent will cook and eat me.

•  Thank you so much for these!

  Every one of these diaries has been a treasure trove of good information.  Thank you so much for taking the time to put them together.

  by Zergle on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 08:33:38 AM PDT

  •  seconded!

    It's a real public service you offer and I really appreciate it.

    You're one of the few diarist I search by name to see if a new chapter of this wonderful series has been released.

    P.S. thanks for the lead on the F&SF magazine, I subscribed to it.  I remember MZB's sword and sorceress magazine and didn't know if if there were any similar magazines for that out there.

    by DawnG on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 08:36:22 PM PDT

    •  You may want to try

      Realms of Fantasy as well.

      And thanks so much for the kind words

      by Swordsmith on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 08:40:31 PM PDT

•  tip jar

  Because writers (and their dead laptops) need love too.

  by Swordsmith on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 08:36:08 AM PDT

•  Swordsmith

  Thanks for posting these. I submitted query letters and manuscript to several agents and publishers. A couple of the agents replied  they were having trouble getting deals for their previously published authors and weren't taking on new clients.  From publishers, I received a couple of form rejections and a very nice rejection email from the editor BenBella, who wrote he thought my manuscript was very good, but he had too much vampire fiction in the pipeline (he had just acquired the back catalog of P.N. Elrod).

  by Carnacki on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 08:39:02 AM PDT

  •  A lot of agents are full

    They do still occasionally take on new clients, and newer agents are actively looking for clients. It sounds like you're doing the right things, but it can take a frustratingly long time. Editors don't send encouraging letters unless they want to be... well... encouraging. You can take the letter at face value, I think.

    by Swordsmith on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 08:50:42 AM PDT

•  Are you a writer?

  I mean, a publishing writer?

  Your series seems excellent to me, though I haven't had to play that "get it accepted" game for more than 15 years, thank God.  

  Don't forget "The Writer's Market" - once a great tool for any beginning writers.   Still is, I expect.

  I just returned from San Diego ComicCon - for any wannabe comic writers, places like that and the various Wizard World conventions are a must.

  by Pundit Hater on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 08:42:03 AM PDT

  •  yes, I am

    9 published books at the moment, mostly nonfiction, though I'm finally back to my SF/F roots and just writing fiction these days. Also I've edited several dozen published books by other folks as an editor and packager. There's a bio and information on my website.

    One of the earlier entries in this series is on the importance of conventions. San Diego ComicCon is great, but a little intimidating for someone not used to Cons, I would think.

    by Swordsmith on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 08:47:27 AM PDT

    •  How do I find your website?

      And San Diego, intimidating?  Why, there were only 130,000 people there this year.  YIKES!

      And I'll tell you, there was a 3-hour line to get in, and many of the people were in costume.  The place smelled like a butt-crack.

      GenCon is up next for me, in Indianapolis....probably only around 40,000 folks there.

      by Pundit Hater on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 11:03:36 AM PDT

      •  there's a link if you click on my name

        or you could just go to www.swordsmith.com. I was trying to avoid plugging myself too overtly here, since this series is partly a vehicle for procrastinating from my current deadline.

        But (Callooh! Callay!) the dead laptop has been returned to life... it arrived back just after I posted this episode.

        by Swordsmith on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 11:11:09 AM PDT

        •  Ah, gotcha...

          well, as a fellow writer, hola.

          by Pundit Hater on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 11:36:10 AM PDT

    •  San Diego Comic Con

      "San Diego ComicCon is great, but a little intimidating for someone not used to Cons"

      Actually, having just returned from that particular extravaganza (which, these days, is far from exclusively devoted to comics), I would suggest that it's almost more liable to be "intimidating" to someone who had been to almost any other kind of conference -- SF convention, academic conference, whatever.

      SDCC is sui generis; there's nothing else remotely like it in modern pop culture.  I actually enjoyed it a lot, but it's typical of absolutely nothing.

      by pnh on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 09:42:04 AM PDT

•  hehehe

  you really ought to explore that "Leaving Laura" idea. Excellent. Maybe you could co-write with Lynne Cheney, sounds right up her alley.

  Good series...

  by decembersue on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 08:44:48 AM PDT

  •  it's mildly tempting...

    ...except that I'd probably end up buried next to that Maine cop who pulled GW over for DWI.

    by Swordsmith on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 10:18:16 AM PDT

•  SSN

  There's a lot of good info in this series, but there's no need to include your social security number on your submission. If a publisher accepts your work, they will have you sign a contract and you can give your SSN then. With so many people suffering from identity theft, the less places you use your SSN, the better.

  by Curmudgeon Bastard on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 08:55:35 AM PDT

  •  SSN

    Including your social security number is more standard when you're submitting to magazines.  Book publishers don't need it at this stage.

    by pnh on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 09:43:54 AM PDT

•  Question

  My family is trying to self-publish in a limited run a manuscript written in the early 20's by one of our relatives. Basically a "What it was like when I was a boy" type thing for rural SoCal in the late 19th Century. Our biggest problem is that we need to copyright it because a couple of local historians and journalists keep trying to steal parts of the manuscript. Do you have any helpful suggestions?

  by SeekCa on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 09:23:43 AM PDT

  •  depending on when it was written...

    you're probably out of luck, and they're probably not stealing.

    A work is automatically copyrighted once you put it into permanent form, i.e., once you print it out. Under current law, the copyright for your work lasts until 70 years after your death. But under the law in place until the mid-1990s, a work was copyrighted for 70 years from the time of publication.

    Once a work passes out of copyright, it is in the public domain, and anyone can use it freely. Republishing the work may be laudable - I re-edited and published Ellen Larned's histories of Windham County, CT from the 1870s - but it won't return the work to copyright once it's in the public domain.

    by Swordsmith on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 09:30:34 AM PDT

    •  Technically it has never been printed

      This was a hand written document that was found in his effects after he died. Apparently, he had thought of printing it up but lost interest after his children died. Will this still count? They are trying to obtain photocopies of the original to use for research. We don't want to stop the research but we do want the story to be properly attributed to him.

      by SeekCa on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 10:02:28 AM PDT

      •  If they don't attribute to him...

        ...it's still plagiarism, regardless of how old the work is. Do you have reason to believe the scholars want to plagiarize the work, rather than use it for research, and quote with attribution? It's a career-killing move for a serious scholar. (On the other hand, if Ann Coulter is looking for it, you're out of luck.)

        The copyright laws of the time were different; under current usage it would definitely be under copyright, but you may want to check with an actual copyright attorney in this case.

        From what you're describing, it doesn't sound like an attempt to steal the work, but legitimate research. (Obviously, there may be details I don't know.) If a researched popularizes your relative's work, it may actually create interest in an edition of the original document (in much the same way that no one read William Blake until T. S. Eliot revived interest in him).

        by Swordsmith on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 10:13:08 AM PDT

        •  Thanks, I was hoping to avoid the lawyer

          but I suppose it is inevitable. The scholars are more in the line of local history buffs as opposed to "real Scholars". They have made my aunt hopping mad and she wants to at least submit this to the LOC to have his version on file as an official source. Small town BS of the finest kind.

          I appreciate your help.

          by SeekCa on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 10:44:24 AM PDT

          •  I feel your pain

            I've lived in a small town for the past 11 years, and was head of the historical society for a while. I love liveing here, but I've had a few run-ins with locals who thought heredity trumped copyright laws.

            by Swordsmith on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 10:57:24 AM PDT

          •  Lawyers & Copyright

            SeekCa, be sure you find a lawyer who has expertise in this area.

            If you'd like to do some background reading on copyright before you talk to a lawyer, the AuthorsLawyer.com website offers lists of books on copyright, for both lawyers and non-lawyers.

            by True North on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 12:32:09 AM PDT

        •  Blake

          OT, but surely Yeats and Chesterton were reading and discussing Blake before Eliot wrote about him in The Sacred Wood.

          by pnh on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 09:49:40 AM PDT

          •  not quite what I meant

            I was referring to Blake as a key staple of the "canon" and required reading for high school and college students. I didn't mean to imply that he was completely forgotten, just to make the point that obscure writers can have resurgances when they're brought to attention by other writers.

            But your point is, of course, correct.

            by Swordsmith on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 10:12:07 AM PDT

      •  'at the time of creation'

        U.S. copyright law, of which I know just enough to cause harm (I assisted for my father's firm, back in the dark ages, which specializes in copyright & trademark, for many years -- his firm contributed deeply to the rewrites in copyright law in the 1970s in the U.S....), states that it occurs "at the moment of creation." In terms of a manuscript, therefore, it doesn't matter if it was handwritten on paper, printed from a computer, carved on a large rock, scribed onto vellum, or whatnot -- it was copyrighted at the moment it was "created" or put down on whatever form it took for the author to create it. It doesn't have to be published to be copyrighted. Copyright law (thanks, Sonny Bono & the Disney Corp.!) currently is the life of the author plus 70 years.

        So you need to determine: How long did your relative live? If it's still within the time period noted above, who is the heir to his estate? Have both of these pieces of information in hand when talking to a lawyer.

        You may be out of luck -- check with an Intellectual Property rights (or IP) attorney to be sure. Many will answer a straightforward question such as this without charging you for an entire hour of consultation.

        by editrix on Mon Jul 31, 2006 at 07:43:31 PM PDT

  •  Public Domain Table

    The AuthorsLawyer.com website has a table, which I think you'll find useful.

    by True North on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 12:40:26 AM PDT

•  Thanks! This is great! n/t

  by daulton on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 11:40:06 AM PDT

•  Swordsmith, what happens if a writer came

  up with a new wrinkle never used in publishing heretofore?

  ie, let's say a writer had an idea to create a "free" book in the sense the buyer would receive his purchase price back?

  How would one approach a publisher with such a concept?

  by 0hio on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 12:00:54 PM PDT

  •  I'm not sure that's an entirely new idea

    The founder of Bibliobytes, for instance, lurks here on Kos.

    You've hit on one of the paradoxes of publishing, though. Publishers want an idea that's fresh and where there's room in the market, but they tend to be terrified of trying anything truly new, or that doesn't have a proven track record. Sometimes the easiest ideas to sell are new twists on proven ideas. (I mentioned in earlier segments that it took Marion Zimmer Bradley 20 years to convince a publisher to take a chance on Mists of Avalon and The Celestine Prophecies and the Left Behind series - all very new ideas, regardless of whether you feel they're good ideas or not - had to be self published and prove themselves before mainstream publishers would pick them up.

    It's tough to sell a book based on a gimmick, although if the gimmick is clever enough it can work. I'll quote Yog one more time: "If a stupid idea works, it's not a stupid idea."

    by Swordsmith on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 12:37:09 PM PDT

•  Let me add my thanks for this

  useful series and ask a question about page formatting.  I read somewhere
  else that publishers like no more than 25 lines to a page.  This would make
  for very high top and bottom margins at 12-point type.  Is there any truth to
  this or am I misunderstanding something?

  by V Botkin on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 01:15:21 PM PDT

  •  I haven't heard that

    As long as it's double-spaced 12-point type with 1-inch margins, I wouldn't worry about the number of lines (about 26 if you're using courier, depending on your printer and fonts). For extra credit and to make the production department happy, turn off widow and orphan control to make the number of lines consistent from page to page and use a fixed-width font such as Courier. But I know of no one will reject a book because of an extra line on the page. (Not saying there aren't any publishers like that out there, but it's not common.)

    Some of the rules that were developed for typewritten manuscripts have evolved in the days of word processing, and I suspect this may be one of those relics. (As noted in the comments above, including the Social Security number is becoming a similar relic in the age of easy communications.)

    by Swordsmith on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 01:46:35 PM PDT

    •  Thanks.

      I'm probably out of date, having grown up with Smith Coronas and spiral-bound notebooks.  

      I look forward to your next update.

      by V Botkin on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 02:10:51 PM PDT

      •  Getting 25 lines per page....

        If you're really interested in doing this (and believe me, it's one of several hot topics that rotate in and out of discussion on RWA loops), it's easy to do in MSWord.  Click on format, paragraph, then look under "line spacing".  Click on "exactly" and "25 pt".  (Instead of clicking on double space.)  

        I don't know why it gives you 25 lines, because if you click on any other number it doesn't work that way, but it does.  Probably doesn't make a hoot of difference in terms of acceptability, but it's one less thing to worry about.  :)

        by Katoid on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 11:08:30 PM PDT

•  Hypothetically speaking,

  how much mojo would it cost us to get you to write page 2 of "Leaving Laura"?

  Seriously, this one was especially helpful - the advice about allowing yourself some flexibility when writing from an outline is well taken, as that's something I've always struggled with.  And as long as I'm ending sentences with prepositions, thanks for the "newbie markers," too.

  by Unitary Moonbat on Fri Jul 28, 2006 at 09:06:05 PM PDT

•  are mainstream publishers

  really still that oriented to paper?

  I've been selling free-lance tech journalism articles since 1987, and I think the last time I sent either queries or manuscipts on paper was some time in 1989.

  These days, my queries are e-mail and my manuscripts are in MS Word doc format.

  by alizard on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 04:07:42 AM PDT

  •  mostly they are, yes

    You csn carry a chunk of paper manuscript around in the subway with you. You can point the editorial assistants at the giant piles of manuscripts when they do slush readings, without having to go back looking for files.

    Some of the magazine publishers (the ones that stay resonably current in their slushpile) ask for electronic submissions, and they say so in their guidelines.

    For initial submissions, most publishers still prefer paper, though. And I think the biggest reason is that it's harder to lose; it doesn't get pushed behind thousands of newer messages.

    by Swordsmith on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 08:01:48 AM PDT

    •  thanks n/t

      by alizard on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 03:13:53 PM PDT

•  Links to Parts 1 - 4

  for noobs who aren't sure how find old links here on this site.

  Part I

  Part II

  Part III

  Part IV

  Swordsmith, this is a wonderful series of diaries you have given this community.

  Our... constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds. Thurgood Marshall

  by bronte17 on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 07:33:17 AM PDT

  •  Ignore this comment -well except for the last

    paragraph.

    This diary isn't fully loading for me --hasn't been for the last hour or so. Didn't see the last section with the links.

    Our... constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds. Thurgood Marshall

    by bronte17 on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 07:36:04 AM PDT

•  Late to the party, but...

  ...came here from diary rescue, and this series is fantastic. My mom has a completed (210,000 word) fantasy novel that has already been through three or four full revisions (definitely publishable, I have read it and made my own suggestions) and I am e-mailing her the links. What she really needs help with now is the finding an agent part.

  Thanks for the great info!

  by buckeye blue on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 01:13:53 PM PDT

  •  that's still a few diaries away

    ...but I'm getting there. I'd prefer to have a few more agents on Kos and involved in the comments before I post that one, but either way I'll get to it before the 8th.

    Next up is probably how publishing lists work, since I keep having to refer to it as part of how books get bought and I'm not sure if my answers are clear.

    by Swordsmith on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 01:21:18 PM PDT

•  tips for nonfiction writers?

  Your series is terrific and I'm enjoying it. However, much of your information, including the proposal format you talk about here, is for fiction writers. I just finished my (40-page!) proposal for a professional/academic book on a new expanded theory of the grief process, and sent it off to a publisher. As a published poet who had quite a complete collection of rejection slips, I've learned how to deal with rejection: Just put it in another envelope and send to someone else :) So, I'm prepared to do that with my proposal, but would still appreciate any tips you might generously offer to a nonfiction writer in my circumstances. I'm probably not the only one here.

  Sorry if another nonfiction writer has commented in a similar way. I haven't had a chance to read through all the comments in your diaries.

  And thanks for all the energy you have put into these diaries. As an old hand at this stuff, I recognize the value of the information you're posting. Here's hoping it will lead to a glut on the market of Kosslit!

  by sunflight on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 08:03:18 PM PDT

  •  the process is similar

    Usually cover letter, proposal, outline, and chapters. Nonfiction publishers may want a different combination of material up front - cover letter and proposal only, for instance, but most of the advice here still applies.

    I have fiction on the brain since that's what I'm writing these days, but most of my published books have been nonfiction. I'm trying to keep these diaries balanced with the assumption that the readers will be about 50-50 between fiction and nonfiction, but by all means keep me honest if I skew more to one side or the other.

    The proposal part of the process is much more important for nonfiction, and I intend to do a segment specifically on proposal writing at some point, expanding on what I've written about proposals in this episode.

    by Swordsmith on Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 08:35:37 PM PDT

  •  nonfiction basically the same process

    As a published nonfiction book author, several times over, I can attest that the process is very similar. One doesn't submit just a proposal if one is hitherto unknown as a writer (i.e., no track record), even in nonfiction. If an editor or agent is interested, the first question they'll ask is, "Is the book done?" and if the answer is "no," they'll politely turn you down each and every time, unless you have other published books they can refer to for your writing experience as well as sales figures.

    (I also work in the field, over 20 years now, and can speak from the other side of the desk.)

    by editrix on Mon Jul 31, 2006 at 07:48:49 PM PDT

•  ROFL!

  "What is it that makes the story special? (A tender coming of age story featuring cannibals, the Federal Reserve Board, and 11,000 gallons of whipped cream)"

  I love this series, thanks for it.

  by Vivian Pettyjohn on Sun Jul 30, 2006 at 07:00:17 PM PDT