Submissions: ———Time, is the highest value.
I see a lot of posts across social media writers’ communities asking about why their manuscript keeping getting rejected. As someone who has been on a few submissions’ teams, I thought I’d take a moment and share some insights that might help.
My Slush-reader Journey….
Being a submission reviewer means reading a lot of unpublished work. At one stage, I could be assigned up to 25 book submissions and 15 shorter works submissions each week. On top of that, I was also researching and getting as much joy reading in as possible. My first 6 months of reviewing submissions (all indi-press), I was adamant I wanted to give every author the best possible benefit of the doubt and close read every page. Almost all my early review notes have ‘shows potential’ in the comments, it is true that I believe almost all stories have potential!
When I realised how many submissions came in everyday, all needing a response within three months, I quickly discovered it just wasn’t possible to spend hours on every single submission.
I found it difficult to learn to be cut throat about it.
I understand how much blood, sweat, and tears go into the creative process. The admiration I have for anyone who completes an MS will always be deep seeded in my categories of respect. I felt I owed it to every author to give their work my full time and attention. I felt cruel if I didn’t read the full 5 chapter samples after the synopsis outline because I know the skills for creative writing and the skills for constructing a solid application proposal are often two different things.
The clincher for me was when I discovered a thrilling page-turner MS that was submitted in full, and I stayed up all night reading it. I got to the end, phoned the boss at a barely acceptable time and said, “We need to accept this story! NOW, it’s incredible! It has everything that excites me about YA and its Fae and Vikings!” It didn’t take much for her to agree and I begged her to let me work on it and accept the submission. But we were already weeks after the turnaround time because I’d been so stubborn in taking my time with every submission. The MS had already been accepted elsewhere. I now follow the author on socials and she seems to be doing really well for herself, it is honestly a really great story, but for me that will always be the book-love affair that got away. As much as I am so thrilled to see her success, I will also be forever sad that I didn’t get to work on the series with her.
This was the lesson for me that, just like not all shoes are made to fit, sometimes you can cut your toes off by trying too hard to hold on to an idea alone. And, I revised my submission review process. Three years on, while my admiration for authors has not shifted, the reality of the industry has made me comfortable being cut-throat.
Tips and Tricks
I’m going to share with you some tips and tricks that my time as a submission review has taught me. This is gathered from my experience and the things other reviewers and industry professionals have also shared with me.
Errors matter. A Lot.
Whether it’s for a book or journal/magazine/zine, first and foremost is always about how polished a work is. If the first page is riddled with grammatical errors, it doesn’t matter how great the rest of the story might be because a reviewer isn’t going to keep reading. It sounds harsh, but it is a business, and your work is a product. Time, is valuable.
If there are multiple errors, that translates to time. The more time a publication will have to spend on getting a piece of work polished, the more expensive it is. Since most places only ask for a sample of an MS, at the very bare minimum, those first few pages should be near-enough-to-spotless. If you’re like me and your spelling and grammar are not run-way worthy, use ProWritingAid or Grammarly to help. Better yet, pay a copyeditor to at least do your sample chapters.
For shorter works where you’re sending the full piece, if the errors are going to take more than 10 minutes to be fixed, the chances are you will receive an auto reject, especially if the place your submitting is run by volunteers.
Context matters. Just as much, if not more.
What I mean by context isn’t the plot of your story and all the engaging themes you’ve woven in. What I mean by context is understanding the place you are submitting to. You need to do your research to find out what they like, don’t like, how they publish, how they review. Is the publication a match for you and your work? Look at the previously published pieces. Check out the reviews on some of their titles. This saves both you and the publication a massive amount of potential disappointment. Which follows into my third and perhaps most important tip.
Read the guidelines closely.
The amount of submissions I have had to red-flag because guidelines were not followed is heartbreaking. Truly. Guidelines are there for a reason, they aren’t just a page to fill in content. They have a purpose. Editors take the time to provide you with the guidelines so they can do their jobs. It doesn’t matter how silly you think one of those guidelines is, they will have a good reason to be written in black and white for you.
Your work might be absolutely brilliant, but if you’ve submitted when a deadline is closed, submitted to a place that only accept writers who live in Carolina and your in Sweden, haven’t used 1.5 line breaks or provided a name when submission needs to be nameless etc etc etc… you will fall victim to automatic rejection. The chances are, you will also only receive the stand rejection letter that says ‘not the right fit’ and be left wondering what on earth that actually means.
MS submission tip:
This one is a little personal preference so I don’t think it belongs in the top three above, but it is something I haven’t seen much talk about so think it’s worth a mention…
Your synopsis is a chance to impress, and it’s your bonus card application.
Depending on what the publication feels is most important will depend on whether they read your synopsis first or your sample chapters. I have been on teams that have told me that if the synopsis doesn’t grab me, then I don’t need to worry about reading the chapter. Sometimes, I’ve read the chapters, and the story has felt flat, but I’ve read a synopsis that is so well crafted it has swayed me to request the full MS.
I have seen far too many submissions where the synopsis is a dry list of names and places that mean nothing to me with things like “Carrie battles queen Gorga and loses. Carrie marries Pluto and gains a new power. Kyle goes missing and Carrie fights Queen Gorga again. Kyle dies. At the funeral, Carrie promises to be a good Queen for the kingdom of Horthas.” This tells me what happens, but it doesn’t give me any insights into the story. I have read thousands of books, replace the names and I’ve read this story before.
Frankly, it’s boring.
A synopsis, in my opinion, has the ability to show your skills as a storyteller and convince me why your story is not like the thousand other ones – the devil is in the details. I am far more likely to progress a submission application to the next round if the synopsis feels like a movie trailer that is complete with all the spoilers. So when you are writing your synopsis, treat it like you are telling the reader an old oral story, give it some flair and some flavour so the reviewer wants to keep reading.
If you really wow a slush pile reader with an engaging synopsis that makes them really want to read the book, you increase the chances that they will ignore more typos or a guideline mishap. You should, in my opinion, always treat your synopsis like a wild card bonus entry.
To sum up, everything about a successful submission comes down to timing. That you have invested your time to polish your work, researched who you are submitting to and respected the publications time by following the guidelines. The more time you give to your submissions presentation, the more you are encouraging the reviewer to spend their valuable time on your work.
Need help with insuring your submission is the best it can be?
I can look over your submission and provide feedback before you hit send.
Submission proposal assessments are NOT MS or editorial assessments, I won’t provide feedback on the story just how you are presenting it and highlighting any potential red-flags.