Samhain Publishing Ltd. Weblog

How NOT To Get Automatically Rejected 101

This blog gives a little peek into one facet of an editor’s job. It applies not only to Samhain, but to probably almost every other publisher/editor out there. The Rejection Letter.

Let This be the Start of a Beautiful Relationship

New authors often wonder what editors expect from them, and what they can do to ensure a productive editor/author relationship. It’s quite simple, really. It’s all about communication and professionalism.

When you receive your first round of edits, be prepared for your precious words to be criticized and dissected nine ways to Sunday. After all, an editor is supposed to point out things that could be improved. We’re looking for inconsistencies, faulty logic, impossible timelines, ambiguities, outdated content, point-of-view slips, weak transitions, misplaced modifiers, repeated information, insufficiently developed characterizations, unbelievable motivation, jarring speeches, noticeable patterns, junk words, punctuation errors and opportunities to deepen the reader’s level of emotional engagement. So, yeah, chances are we’ll find a few things that we’ll ask to be changed.

A Pen by Any Other Name

Choosing a pen name for a writing career is probably as difficult for most people as choosing a name for a child—and the same amount of thought and care should probably go into the decision. Yet just like those urban legends of parents who name their kids Female (Fuh-MALL-ee) or Lemonjello (Le-MON-juh-lo) or Shithead, there are always going to be pen names out there that will have you wondering just what the heck the author was thinking. So at the prodding of the Samhain staff and in the hopes of keeping authors from being made fun of at the industry playground, here are some tips to keep in mind when choosing your pen name.

All about self-editing

When I got my reminder last week that it was my turn again to post a blog, I couldn’t think of anything other than things that have already been done. Query letters, professionalism, submissions….and I think I was even the one who wrote two of them. Nice, huh? So I got to thinking about it and I decided that I needed to do one on self-editing. And no, doing a Spell Check doesn’t even begin to cover what you need to do to prep your manuscript for submission. Keep in mind that when you submit something, the cleaner and more polished it is, the more it is going to be looked at by the editor in a positive light. Don’t even ask me what we think when we see something full of grammar mistakes, word misusage, punctuation errors… The list goes on. The easiest way to do this is to number them, so, well, that’s what I’m going to do. =-)

Recovery mode

Now that I’m back from RWA Nationals in Washington D.C., I’m in full recovery mode. I’m sure the 2000 other women who attended are feeling much the same thing. If you’ve never attended a conference, and especially a conference of this size, you’re probably wondering just what recovery mode entails so I’m going to share some insights with you.

Queries

While they might make an author’s life more difficult, a good query letter can make an editor’s life much easier. But notice I said “a good query letter”. So, what makes a query letter good?

Well, after reading hundreds of submissions over the past 2 years I’d like to go into a few things I often find missing from a query letter and a few things that I’d rather do without.

Serious about Series?

We all have our pet peeves. Many readers detest books written in first person, others hate secret baby plots. I won’t watch a movie or even a TV episode unless I can see it from the beginning. (And DH is a channel surfer…yeah, we won’t go there.)

So when I’m reading submissions, one thing that gets me is feeling like I’ve missed the beginning of the story. Sometimes I suspect I’m reading a sequel only to discover that the author has simply provided too much backstory upfront. When authors devote long passages to the characters’ pasts at the expense of present action, it irritates grumpy editors like me (hmm, not the best way to impress an acquiring editor). Other times of course I’m reading the nth episode in a series.

Submitting a sequel to an editor who hasn’t worked on book one presents a challenge. There are good reasons why an author may choose to do this—the original publisher may have gone out of business, the author may have issues with her publisher, or her editor may have left the house. So when an author submits a ms to an editor who is unfamiliar with the series, she has to meet the additional burden of hooking the editor’s interest in midstream. And the acquiring editor might be as anal and grumpy as I am.

Rejections: It's Not You, It's Me

When you get right down to it, the submissions process isn’t that much different from the dating scene. We’re all putting ourselves out there, going on blind dates in the form of queries, testing the waters of the relationship through partials and fulls (will you still respect me if I admit I read fulls on the first date?) and hoping to find that special someone with whom we can share a lasting relationship. Of course, in the case of publishing we’re not exactly talking till death do us part (but check your contract for such clauses!). Most of us wouldn’t turn down a hot fling with the right author—and we’re clearly not talking about a monogamous relationship (heck, some of us are even into three or four at once—you know, for anthologies)—but overall I’d say editors are looking for long-term commitment. We want authors who are interested in building a career with us and who aren’t going to bail as soon as things get tough—or throw us over for a newer, hotter publisher.

So, like a romantic relationship, a strong author-editor relationship has to be built on a strong foundation—one of compatibility, shared values, mutual respect, and even passion. “It’s not you, it’s me” may be the biggest of all dating clichés, but that makes it apt for the submissions process as well, which is every bit as subjective and in which, truly, rejection is often as much about the editor as it is about the manuscript. The actual reasons we reject books are often diverse and varied, but here are some thoughts on rejections as illustrated by common dating clichés.

Getting picked for an anthology

We very frequently have calls for a themed anthology, be it the current call for a space opera story or the recent call for the bondage-themed anthology (Binding Ties! Coming this September! grin) or any of our many other anthologies.

Personally, I love anthologies. My reader self loves them for the theme, and the variety of voices, and the bite-sized reads are perfect for a quick fix. My editor self loves the chance to work with Samhain authors I don’t usually get to work with and the opportunity to discover brand-spanking new authors – each of the anthologies I’ve done have included at least one previously unpublished author.

So, I’d like to offer a few tips to help you find yourself included in an upcoming anthology.

'As's and 'But's...

No, I didn’t pick this topic for the title alone! The day we were asked to blog, I was busy picking out repeated words and phrases in a book I had bought the previous evening. By the time I had hit Chapter Three, I had begun to realize the characters always had the same way of picking something up and the dialogue was filled with tags that told me how something was said rather than letting the characters speak for themselves. Then came the “as”s and “but”s… I feel like I need to add “Oh My” to that for some reason. The number of repeated words in this book (which shall remain nameless and I’m happy to say is not one of SP’s), is astonishing. I’m not sure if I picked it up because I’m an editor or because there are so many of them. The number of “that”s is off the chart.

What I am talking about are not called filter or filler words, this is about plain old repetition. I have heard these words referred to as slipper words—because you feel comfortable using them. And everyone does it. I re-read what I write at least 3 or 4 times because one scan is specifically for repeated words and phrases. I tend to love “about”. I’m not sure why it has crept into my writing. In speech lately, I’ve noticed I say “yeah” a lot.