From the editor
I
was watching an interview the other day with the Christopher
Little Agency employee who first read the partial, and
requested the full manuscript, of JK Rowling's Harry Potter
and the Philosopher's Stone. We all know how that story
ended, but what I found interesting was the comment that
Rowling had submitted her partial fully ring bound. The
employee said she was drawn to read it "despite" the faux pas.
Since
binding submissions is strongly discouraged, one can only
surmise how many of the agencies who rejected Rowling's
submission actually chose not to bother reading it because she
didn't know the industry guidelines.
In many ways it's silly, but the justification is that there is only
so much time to trawl through the slush pile, and preference
is given to submissions that follow guidelines.
Good
writing and a great story will eventually win through, but
don't make the journey any harder for yourself than it already
is.
Elle
5/4/07
Formatting
your submission to agents and publishers
One of the biggest hurdles in writing is getting a publisher interested in buying your manuscript. Slush pile readers have a lot of manuscripts to go through, so don’t give them any formatting reasons to ignore yours.
Read
this article
Related
links and articles
Writing a synopsis
Do you need a literary agent?
Setting goals for your writing career
Previous
articles on the Fiction Writing site
How
not to write a novel
Writing
mysteries
Writing
a book that makes a difference
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