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Get To Know A Publisher BEFORE You Submit You’ve finally finished your manuscript and are ready to submit it to a publisher. But how do you know where to send it, and how can you increase your chances of having it accepted? By doing your homework. Take the time to study the publisher market before you submit your manuscript—it’ll save you time, postage, and emotional distress. First, get to know the publishers in your genre, and especially in your category: Publishers and booksellers all list their books under specific product category headings for sales purposes, such as Sports, Business, Parenting, Education, etc. Determine into what category your manuscript best fits, and look for publishers who focus their list on that niche. Publishers hate it when they receive queries or manuscripts for books that wouldn’t fit anywhere on their list—it shows that the author hasn’t bothered to take the time to learn what that publisher does, and that’s the kiss of death. Spend some time on the publisher’s web site, see what the latest books are and what publishing niches the overall list might reveal. Most small-to-medium publishers tend to focus their lists on a few key categories. It’s also a very good idea to get a sense of the tone of a publisher’s list: If you have a how-to manuscript on alternative medicine, for example, make sure the publisher to which you’re submitting has other books that would fit well with yours rather than a list full of books lauding traditional medicine. Most publishers don’t want to publish orphans—books that are out of the general categories they publish and thus won’t have other books in the genre that can be cross-marketed. Also be sure to study a publisher's authors' guidelines: They have them for a reason. Virtually all publishers post their guidelines on their web site, and the way the guidelines are posted is the way they want writers to send their manuscripts to them. If the publisher asks for a full manuscript, send a full manuscript rather than two chapters and a query. If the guidelines say to send in a SASE for return of material, send it in or don’t expect your material back. If the publisher says it doesn’t accept simultaneous submissions, please don’t submit the manuscript to another publisher until your SASE is returned to you. And if the publisher doesn’t accept unsolicited or un-agented queries or manuscripts, don’t bother sending them: They will be thrown away, unopened. Publishers want good material that will fit into their list, and they want to know the writers they plan to work with are professionals. So take a little time at the beginning and increase your chances of making the right publishing fit the first time. Laurie is the acquisitions editor and marketing director for Nomad Press,
and the author of 8 books. Visit Nomad Press at http://www.nomadpress.net/
and help them choose the cover for their latest book here: http://pub43.ezboard.com/fabsolutewritefrm33.showMessage?topicID=2.topic. |
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