A NOVEL APPROACH

Really, I know how difficult it is for publishers to look at the work of a new writer. Even published authors struggle from time to time. The industry is changing all the time and that means your approach has to change all the time.

I was interviewed on Essential Writers not too long ago, where I was asked about how authors should avoid the slush pile: ‘Firstly by not sending unsolicited work. That gets a bit annoying. It sounds bad to say it, but there literally isn’t time to devote to this kind of approach. If you are serious about and believe in your work, you need to go about submitting it the right way. Your query letter is crucial. You need to get that as good as the work you are submitting.’

Being a writer is not easy. Don’t make it worse! It’s not even 9am and I’ve already received two submissions. One just has what I assume is the entire manuscript pasted into the body of the email. The other is just a synopsis of a novel. Neither of these bothered to introduce themselves and there was no query letter. I don’t expect them to have read that interview, but I’d probably expect that if they were sending work to a publisher, they’d at least look on their website at submission guidelines first. Would you just walk up to a publisher and shove a manuscript in their face without saying anything? I hope not. So why do it in an email?

When I used to send query letters, I’d spend ages just getting them right. Before that, I took an example from the Yearbook, modified it a bit and got interest from it. It can be that simple. I can’t imagine just sending a publisher my work without so much as a hello and expect it to get a response. Don’t give anyone you send your work to an excuse not to look at it.