Nuts and bolts are integral to the framework upholding your final product. In our case, “final product” is that published article, devotional, short story, novel, novella, play, joke, greeting card, poem, song…okay, whatever you’ve written that’s been acknowledged and printed by someone who didn’t raise you. Money isn’t part of the equation yet. As in any building endeavor, there are directions to follow in order for the completed structure to stand strong. Publishers already know this. That’s why they’ve developed a particular strategy to weed out weaknesses. You can use this to your advantage. Practice is a good thing (that’s how we professionals look upon rejections – or “denials” as a good buddy calls them). Querying an agent is similar, but we can talk about that another time.

Remember, a publisher can’t say “no” if you don’t submit. They can’t say “yes” either.

In an ideal world, you will know where you want to see your work published, and you’ll have done your homework so see if your work is a good fit for the publisher. You might even have a target in mind before you write – and that’s even better.

Resources:

Writer’s Market

Anywhere on the Internet or– take with a grain of salt

Those catchy little lines following published authors signatures you see on the Internet

Writer’s magazines/e-zines or groups

Submissions have a lot of variance according to individual publishing house rules. Let me reiterate: A LOT! You must be very careful to follow something called “guidelines” which we’ll get to. But there are some basic underlying documents to prepare and keep on hand that can be adjusted as needed. Even if you don’t use each document, it’s still good practice and being prepared helps when you get that publisher’s message “Send me your proposal and the first three chapters at your convenience.” The preparation will help you understand and bond with your project. Enthusiasm is important when pitching your project, both verbally and in writing. For most written work, you’ll put together a “submission packet” which will probably include some or all of the following:

X Query/ or query letter

X Cover letter

X Synopsis which will include a hook or theme or log line

X Writing sample, which will usually be the first few chapters or completed piece

X Resume

X Clips

X Writing Plan

X Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope if sending by land

Only the above items should be included, and only on industry standard supplies which are noted later. Keep in mind, though, that different companies have different requirements. You may be asked to include a resume or fill out extensive information about yourself and your goals and experience from forms they’ll send you or tell you how to download, or a questionnaire of some kind to fill out.

What not to use or include:

M Fancy stationery of any kind

M Perfume or scent

M Gifts of any kind

M Voice messages

M Revelations from God or anyone else

M Threats

M Promises

M Sob Stories

M Excuses

M Underwear, locks of hair, or any other personal items

What should you spend the most time and effort on? Your first impression, of course. The first thing the prospective acquiring editor sees will most likely be the greeting of your query. The best thing you can do for yourself is to get the name right. Don’t laugh. It happens. All the time. If you were an editor, how would you sort out three hundred random writers begging for the chance to fill one slot in your schedule? How far would you read if the first thing you saw was a mistake? Think about it. Ditch spell-check after the first pass and read everything out loud, including the punctuation. And then have someone else look at it, too.

Remember: everyone has an opinion about what works and what doesn’t. Listen to a lot of people, read a lot of information and then do what you think best to showcase your efforts and make the publisher say “yes! I want to work with this.” You have thirty seconds to make a positive impression. Go!

Rule number one and foremost: Do what you’re asked to do. Double check the submission guidelines. “Guidelines?” you ask? “Never heard of ’em.”

Okay, we can work with this. All publishers have guidelines, or submission regulations. They’ll be listed on the website, or somewhere in the publication. If there aren’t any – get this – the publication doesn’t want you. At least, not right now. They don’t want you sending them anything except money for a subscription or buying their stuff. When the publisher says “no unsolicited submissions, they’re serious. Don’t annoy them. Start humbler. You can work up to some day being the author they’ll call.

When you see the word “submission” somewhere on the publisher’s web page and click on it, you’ll get to the rules. Sometimes the webmaster cleverly hides this little link under “contact us.” Look around, check out all of the information on the publisher’s website or on the contacts/information page of the publication. You may be requested to send through the postal service for them. The submission guidelines are not really guidelines. They are directions. You need to follow them in order to do it right. Sometimes they’re really vague. This is a clue—they want to see how up to speed, smart and creative inside the professional box you can be. Sometimes they’re very specific and helpful. They tell you to look and study what the company already puts out. (Another little tidbit of experience: it’s not true that publishing doesn’t cost any money. Writing doesn’t have to cost more than a piece of paper and a pencil, but getting published…well, you should try to purchase some books or magazines or whatever from the company that you target. Or at least read them in your local library. I’ll add here: save up and go to conferences to make face to face contacts. That’s really your surest bet.) The guidelines may say exactly what kind of material/genre/length/proposal they’re looking for. They say when they accept submissions. They even tell you how to format your letter and what to write. Do it.

Are you submitting electronically? Does the editor want an attachment or a message in the body of the e-mail? Is there a form from the website to use? Do they want queries by mail? Check the dates. Many companies offer only certain windows of opportunity during the year.

Publishers are over-inundated by the clamor of writers who want to be published. How to sort this out? They’ve often resorted to a query. Query, of course, means to ask. The publisher wants you to ask him or her if your project is a good fit for the publication. This is your first impression. You might be asked to submit a simple query of a paragraph or so to begin with in an e-mail, or you might be asked to submit a query letter. These letters almost exclusively are limited to one page. If you have a paragraph query in which to make your case, use succinct language to outline your project in a couple of sentences; add one sentence about why it fits the publication and finish with one or two sentences about why you’re writing this particular item. This is good practice for any time someone asks you what your book is about and what audience you expect to read your book, anyway, so you might as well see what you can do.

A whole page will seem like a feast after trying the paragraph query. The whole page, of course, includes the industry standard format of header, body of letter, signature. Don’t make it look too crowded. Industry standard asks you to use a seriphed font like Times New Roman, 12 point. No odd type face. Black letters. White paper. One-inch margins around your entire document. Cheaters will be caught. Bleary-eyed editors can tell ¾-inch margins or 10 or 11 point font in an instant. Some care. Don’t give them any excuse to toss your letter. This format holds whether you submit electronically or through the postal service. A letter is a letter. One page is one page. If you’re sending your letter in the body of an e-mail, and it’s supposed to be one page, test it out by writing the thing on a page in your word processing program, then cut and paste it into the body of your e-mail. Don’t try to mess with funky formatting; html will just make it look messy, anyway, when it’s received by the editor who reads it with his or her own e-mail program which may not be the same as yours.

A letter starts with a Header. Upper left corner:

Your name and address

Publication

Name and address of enquiring party

Date

Salutation

Body of letter: probably about three paragraphs.

In general, how to make your case would include the query information, just expanded. I usually use up a sentence starting out by thanking the editor for looking at this query. Do include:

Ø Nature of your project, including the final word count. (Now here’s where I have to say to beginning writers – please don’t submit stuff before you have it finished. It’s just a bad idea. And yes, I have experience with this.) Pretend you’re looking him or her in the eye, and they’ve just asked you what your (book) is about. Answer in three-four sentences. Pitch one project at a time, even if you have a drawerful.

Ø Who you are and your reason for tackling this project. The range for this paragraph is enormous. Just sticking with the facts is always best. Do not make any statements about what you think the scope of your project will be – that’s their vision. Do not compare your work to the big guns – although…some editors will tell you they like to know if you think you write like Jodi Picoult or Ted Dekker…it’s a tough call. You could probably be safe by sticking with genre instead of name dropping. Are you in any national organizations? Professional organizations? What’s your day job and does it have anything to do with your potential audience. This paragraph will mostly be a personality test and a potential marketing platform. Portray the best and most real “you” there is. If you’re a shy flower, ask someone else to describe you and use some of those descriptions. Again, you have three to five sentences. Bullet points take up room, but can be useful. Make them count. Definitely include writing credentials. “Don’t have any,” you say? Get some! “Um, how?” you ask? How ’bout this: Read any local newspapers? Most smaller rags look for color stuff or are crying for someone to cover a boring county board meetings. Same with smaller local magazines, which you can find at the library, but don’t be afraid to try a bigger niche one if you have a cool hobby or something, you never know. (Surprised the heck outta me when Writer’s Digest wanted to publish an interview I had done.) Go to church with a national presence? Do they have a magazine or a website? Are you familiar with any newsletters? Your library need a reviewer? How about your own blog or website? Get to it!

Ø Your third paragraph will probably be house-keeping stuff, like letting the editor know that you know who they are. Some general sentence about a recent release or article that affected you. A little repeated thanks. Let them know when you can be reached. Let them know you’re a hard worker and willing to do what it takes to be successful without sounding like you’re begging or groveling or smooching…well, you know. Probably not a good time to mention that drawerful of rejections, either. You don’t bring up money or payment, or pleas to work on commission, or anything like that. You don’t ask questions about it. In fact, you don’t ask questions about anything. Not even when he thinks he’ll get back to you. If they accept your work and offer a contract, then you get to negotiate. But not until then.

Be professional, be courteous. A good story at a good time will usually get a look. If your query is denied, don’t burn bridges. No follow-ups inside a couple of months (unless told specifically otherwise), no arguing or sending you-hurt-my-feelings e-mails.

Practice is practice. Why’d you get denied the opportunity to make them money? It might not have been a good day for the editor. They might have already accepted something just like yours. Your story might not fit where they want to go next year, or the year after when they’re scheduling. Your story or your writing might need some polish. Keep trying. Most people have stories about how many rejections they got before their work was accepted.

Okay? Clear as mud?

Questions? Feel free to ask me for a complimentary copy of one of my successful proposals. My e-mail’s on the main page.

Practice!

Cover letter  

This is the letter that goes with your project THAT’S BEEN REQUESTED. It often includes much of what you wrote in the query, but here you have a little more room. I’d spend it on the project itself, Could go two pages, but I’d still keep it short and grateful, and very professional. Yes, often you use both in your proposal. And, to be perfectly honest, I’ve often shortened the cover letter, and just used it as a reminder of what my project was about, if the editor asks me to send proposal information such as standard forms that they’ve sent or asked me to download, or my biographical information or my marketing plan and that kind of thing. If I’m only sending a synopsis and the first few chapters, I’ll make the cover letter longer to include those biographical and marketing things, but otherwise, I’ll just make my letter a paragraph on the order of, “here’s the material you requested from me, about my story, which is….”

Synopsis

I have actually (sorry – love that word) submitted to two publishing houses lately which have not been interested in a synopsis. One of them said, “we know you hate to write it, and we won’t read it, so don’t bother!” Yippee!

A synopsis is a summary, or a complete overview, of your writing project. This will include a hook or theme or log line – this is the buggiest part of the whole deal. A synopsis has just enough details to showcase the scope of the book. Do not get entangled with all of the subplots in your novel – just give the major points in present tense. Start with a roman-numeral outline for yourself if you have to. The finished synopsis should be anywhere from one to three pages, according to what’s asked of you; if nothing is mentioned about length, I’d keep it to about two pages. You tell the whole story. Start at the beginning—of your story, not the backstory or the reason you wrote it, or how it came about, but what’s going on now in your book. Tell what happens to the main characters. Tell the entire story, and don’t leave any cute cliffhangers. The editor wants to know if the premise holds, and if the ending is believable, if the characters are real. For non-fiction, you’ll give all your basic information, something about every chapter, your sources, your references, and the final analysis of what you learned, and what your reader should know after finishing your book. I’ve seen synopses up to ten pages, though, and non-fiction writers will need to give chapter summaries. A synopsis is used to judge the completeness of the project more than anything else. Generally, acquiring editors won’t spend the time on that length of synopses. A hook sentence is important, though: it’s your theme, the premise of your story in one sentence, or thirty or so words. Think: What’s the most intriguing thing that happens in your story? What would make someone want to read it, after reading just one sentence? Flip over a dozen books and read the back cover or the inside flap for a few clues. Or, better yet, visit a bookstore and pick up books at random and try to figure out what’s going on and why you would or wouldn’t buy it just by reading the publisher’s blurb.

Writing sample

This will usually be the first few chapters, fifty pages, or completed piece for shorter items – just what it is: give what they ask. Always industry standard format font, margins, etc. whether you’re submitting electronically or by land. Check for information about attachments. There are a number of ways to format the pages, if asked to submit in an attachment. If there are no clear directives on how to number the pages, I prefer to use the “footer” like this: title/my name (eg; working title: The Gold Standard/Lickel) on the left, second line has the page number. Some prefer a “header” with this information, or put it on the right. Some people include the date of the submission or the draft. It’s just a toss-up from editors, who, for the most part, have said in interviews that they either don’t care, or will tell the author of his or her preference.

This is similar to a resume you would use to find work. Writing resumes would be limited to your publication credits and your life of writing, not your work history. If you don’t have any, then you’d include other relevant information, such as projects you’re working on, contracts, your education, coursework, groups you belong to, what you’re doing to get published, your website, blog, social networking and marketing information, things like that. You can still use subject headers like “Goal,” “Education,” “Completed projects or Manuscript history,” “Recent publications,” “Personal information,” etc. For sample writing resumes, I’d check internet sites. Do a search for “writer’s resume.”