by iakul

Created on: October 23, 2009

Being a good writer doesn't necessarily mean that you will get published. There are certain guidelines that publishers will expect you to follow when submitting your work, and ignoring them will guarantee that your work will come back rejected, that is, if you are lucky enough that you even got a reply at all.

First, a basic outline of the procedure involved.

A publisher will have a list of what they want for a submission. It'll include the name of who to send it to, what genres they publish, and what kind of samples they require (e.g two chapters and a sypnosis), among other things. Send your cover letter, along with the sample that they require. If you expect to get your work back, include a self-addressed envelope, along with enough postage to cover it. From there, you'll just have to wait for the reply.

A good cover letter should read something like this:

Dear (name of person),

I have enclosed a sample of my novel (name of novel) for your consideration. This novel is a (name of genre) and it is X thousand words in length (estimate of the length of your novel rounded off to the nearest thousand words). As per your submission requirements, I have sent two sample chapters and a sypnosis (or whatever other submission requirements that they have stipulated). I have also enclosed a self-addressed envelope for the manuscript's return and say . I have previously published ( works of yours that were published in magazines or won in competitions, or if you don't have any, leave out this line)

Here are my contact details. (Contact details.)

Yours sincerely,

(Your name)

It's a fairly simple and straightforward letter, but it gets the job done. The editor doesn't want to know that your mom absolutely loved it. He or she also isn't interested that you spent three years writing a book. His or her job is to determine whether something is good enough to be worth publishing. You can spare the details for when you actually have the book published.

There are also a number of things that you should take note of.

1. Do not ask the publisher to make an exception. If they only deal in specific genres, it's likely there for a very good reason. And a publisher of cookbooks is not likely to have someone who is able to accurately assess your vampire romance fiction anyway, so it's not just a matter of whether they want to make an exception, but also a matter of whether they can actually make an exception. Which is almost always no.

2. Do not self-publish your work or post it on the web, and expect the publisher to give you any other reply except a rejection. Publishers need to be the first person to present your work to the public. Most editors will take a pretty hard stance on this, so if you have already done so and still want to get published, write another book.

3. Stick to the guidelines. If the publisher says two chapters and a synopsis, do not send your entire novel saying "My entire novel is good and I couldn't decide which chapters to send, so I'm sending everything instead."

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