Your Manuscript’s Journey…

In my last blog I mentioned a book by Tony Russo that, although several editors the author had pitched the manuscript to did not consider the manuscript to have “shelf appeal,” I really liked. You’ll be happy to know we have gone to contract on “Call of the Kestrel” and are looking at Tony’s other works.

This does raise an interesting question. If we’re not necessarily looking for books that editors from the major publishers would consider to have “shelf appeal” or books that fit a predefined format for a genre, what are we looking for? To answer this question, I want to give you a glimpse into the journey your manuscript takes after you submit it to Divertir Publishing. This week I will talk about our review process in general. In the upcoming weeks I will talk about specific things we look for. I hope that, by understanding the decisions we make at each point in the process, author will have a better feel for what we will publish and how to navigate the process successfully.

Initial queries are reviewed by our Acquisitions Editor Jen Corkill. Jen usually makes the decision whether a query will be forwarded to one of our reviewers or rejected based solely on the query letter (she will almost never read the sample chapters), so a strong query letter that clearly describes the manuscript is essential. It is also important that an author clearly identify the genre of the work in the query letter – telling us your young adult romance novel is a mystery could result in it being sent to a reviewer that does not like young adult romance, and your work may get a bad review for all the wrong reasons.

Who are our reviewers? They are people we’ve identified who are not only avid readers but who can articulate the strengths and weaknesses of a manuscript. In short they are your target audience, and we take their opinions very seriously. The reviewer will make the decision whether we request a full manuscript or reject a query based on the synopsis and sample chapters. While I will talk about this more in my next blog, the best way to ensure that your full manuscript is requested is a strong opening without a lot of back story. Interestingly, I can usually tell the manuscripts that will make it to the final review stage at this point; if the reviewer behaves like a child in the back seat on a long road trip when asking about your full manuscript (“Is it here yet, is it here yet?”), then I can usually predict how the review of the full manuscript will turn out.

When we request the full manuscript it will always go back to the person who did the initial review if they are available. The reason is we want to see if the same excitement about your work exists the second time the reviewer reads it. For full manuscripts we ask our reviewers to write a brief critique (which we are happy to send to authors if requested), which is then discussed during a weekly meeting where we decide as a group which manuscripts will move forward.

The final step of our review process is that I read every manuscript under consideration. The reason for this is simple – as the publisher, I am responsible for the quality of the books we bring to market. If I disagree with a reviewer on a manuscript it will also be read by Jen. I admit there are some books that don’t grab me (I wanted everyone to die by book eight of the Wheel of Time series), and in those instances it’s best to get another opinion. If we decide a book should go to contract, I will always set up a time to talk with an author before sending the contract. Being published by a small press is not the same as being published by Random House, and I think it’s important I personally explain what an author should expect before I send a contract.

Because I make the final decisions on what we publish, I want to spend my next few blogs talking about what I look for in submissions. The next blog will focus on what I look for in general, while several blogs after that will focus on specific genres. But the short answer to this question is simple and something I stated last week – I want to be the publisher who discovers the next format that has “shelf appeal” and not one who only publishes books that stick to the current formats. A well-written manuscript that is unique will almost always end it’s journey with me setting up a time to talk with the author.

A Matter of Taste…

Recently author Tony Russo posted a blog about a manuscript he has submitted to Divertir Publishing for review. He had attended a “pitch workshop” for writers where he presented the pitch for his manuscript Vanquish to a panel of New York editors. The editors basically told him that a young adult alternate history novel about a young girl becoming a Spitfire pilot during the Battle of Britain had no “shelf appeal” and that he should completely rewrite the book. The reason? None of the things in his book (like the fact it was set during World War II) would appeal to teen girls, who are the primary readers for this genre. To quote his blog:

So girls and vampires, yes; girl who shoots a bow and arrow in a dystopian future, yep; but a girl flying a Spitfire == no.

After working with the editors on what was “wrong” with his book, the pitch he finally presented was for a very different manuscript than Vanquish. I only have one issue with the advice from the editors who helped Tony rewrite his pitch:

I like the book the way it is.

The plot is very clever, and while I did not like one of the subplots and think the ending needs work, I think overall it’s a well-written manuscript. It could very well be that I’m nothing more than a “Tool of the Publishing Elite” who has no understanding of what gives a book “shelf appeal.” More likely, it’s a matter of taste. I’m not looking to publish the next Twilight – I’m looking for manuscripts that are different than what mainstream publishing has decided is the “format” that works for a particular genre. In short, I want to be the publisher who discovers the next format that has “shelf appeal” and not one who publishes books that stick to the current formats.

This is not to suggest that authors should not think about the “shelf appeal” of their manuscript – a 250 page novel written in Haiku is probably not going to be picked up by any publisher, no matter how clever an idea that might be. Readers of different genres expect certain things in the books they read, and to ignore this is to guarantee that your writing will never develop a readership. But the fact that your manuscript does not fit the “format” for a genre does not mean it’s not a good idea for a book. It just means you might need to work harder to show publishers why it is…

Evolution…

As every business evolves and grows, there come times when the need for changes in policies is realized. An email I received from an author today made me realize that this is one such time.

When I started Divertir Publishing, doing things differently was important to me. Something I wanted to do differently was how we handled queries. One common complaint from authors is that they often get rejections letters with no indication why a query was rejected. Thus, we made the decision when we started that we would always try to provide some commentary on why a query was rejected.

Last year, we received well over 1,000 queries, and the first evolution of this policy was necessary. Last January we decided that queries that did not make it past the initial query letter review would receive a form rejection letter. For queries and full manuscripts forwarded to a reviewer or editor, the comments from the reviewer would be forwarded if we thought they would be helpful.

Recently we received three manuscripts that I really liked the concepts for but that, in my opinion, were just not ready for publication. Not only did I send each author the reviewer’s comments, but took the time to speak to each authors individually via phone about my interest in the manuscripts and what I thought would bring the manuscripts to where I needed them to be to consider publication. I hope my comments were useful. In one case, the author has continued to make changes to the manuscript and work with us – I’m guessing at some point this will result in a contract. But in the second and third cases, the authors made superficial changes to the manuscripts and went on to explain why they were right to leave things as they were. After three rounds of reviews by multiple people (including myself) for each of these manuscripts the authors were sent rejection letters.

Today I received an email from one of the authors stating that “There’s something you’re not getting here” and “To be honest, I didn’t have a lot of faith in your desire for this book anyway.” Had the email from the author merely thanked me for my time I would not be writing this blog. However, given the amount of time I personally spent on the manuscript, this author’s comments have just reinforced for me that as much as authors say they want to hear why their manuscripts have been rejected often they are unaccepting of the explanation.

The simple truth is that, when you send a manuscript for possible publication, you are in essence asking us to endorse your work. I will not endorse a work I do not like or think has issues, regardless of how much an author believes in that work. Perhaps in those cases I am just not the right publisher for the work. But the recent number of emails we’ve received questioning our rejections has made me decide it is time for another evolution in our policy regarding queries. We are a publisher with a specific idea of what makes a manuscript publishable – not a critique group or writing program – and as such it would be pretentious for us to continue to provide feedback to authors. Thus, we will no longer include the reviewer’s comments when a manuscript is rejected.

Breadcrumbs…

Most sites giving advice to writers suggest that an author check out a publisher or agent before submitting to them. From Preditors and Editors and the Absolute Write Water Cooler (that’s the link describing us) to Writer’s Beware (the link is to my guest blog on fee-charging agents), there are several places an author can go to check out a publisher before submitting a manuscript. I routinely suggest to authors that they check out Divertir Publishing before they sign a contract with us, and have gone so far as to set up meetings between our current authors and potential authors so the potential authors could ask questions before signing. Why would I do this? Two reasons: first, I want the authors that sign with us to be completely comfortable with the decision.

Second, it’s because I’ve checked you out…

In web programming, the term “breadcrumbs” is used to describe the trail one blazes as they navigate a web site; simply clicking on one of the breadcrumbs on a web page allows you to go to a previously visited page. It may shock you to hear this, but you leave “breadcrumbs” all over the internet. A search on Facebook with your email address will show me your Facebook page. A Google search for your name will often turn up everything from your author site and blog to your deviantArt and Story Write pages (where we discovered Verena Sandford, who is one of my favorite short story authors and who was featured in our first and second short story collections).

So what exactly am I looking for as I follow your breadcrumbs? I’m looking to see how serious and professional you are as a writer. Have you written an entertaining blog on why strippers shouldn’t eat curry, or is your blog a rant about how publishers deserve a special place in Hell? Does you blog offer interesting insight into controversial topics, or does it discuss how much you drank at the last keg party? Are there samples of your writing online that show me how creative you are and that might give me more insight into you as a writer?

Breadcrumbs are interesting, in that they can hang around for a long time. Here is a conversation I had with with Jane Smith (who writes the blog “How Publishing Really Works”) from February 2010. In hindsight, I will admit that some of my views on publishing back then were naïve. By the same token, I do owe her an email to point out that we were featured in the article “Keys to Cracking 10 Top Markets” by Adria Haley in the September 2011 edition of Writer’s Digest – thus her prediction of our doom before we started was premature.

What is the reason for  pointing out this last exchange with Jane Smith? It’s that the things we post on the web can stay there for a very long time, and eventually someone will have a reason to follow your breadcrumb. You should always try to make sure they create a positive impression for those who make the effort…

Postage Due…

This week, I could continue to rant about the nasty emails we sometimes get in response to rejection letters, like the one yesterday that suggested the author should put a part of his anatomy up a part of mine because I failed to see his genius (I wish I was making this up). Instead I want to rant about something else: the Post Office. Our submissions guidelines state that we only accept electronic submissions, but a few times a week we receive queries to the P.O. Box. Because I understand that authors do not always get our contact information from our website, I do try to answer queries we receive via the mail. That is, unless they come postage due…

Truth be told, I suspect this is usually not an author’s fault. The woman at our post office weighs every package that comes in, even the ones where the postage has been printed by another branch. If the package is even slightly overweight, I get a yellow slip telling me I can rescue the package for a small fee. I once asked, given the postage had been printed by another branch (and thus the package must have been weighed), whether the package was really overweight. I watched the package as the woman dropped it on the scale from eight inches in the air. It bounced twice before settling on the scale, which promptly displayed the package was two-tenths of an ounce overweight. Busted…

It has gotten to the point that I receive so much mail postage due to the P.O. Box that I have taken to having it returned to the sender. I’m hoping that enough people will complain that there was, in fact, enough postage on the envelope that eventually the Post Master will do something about it.

This is one of the reasons we recommend electronic submissions. Think for a moment what needs to happen if a query is sent using the US Mail. First, you need to make sure there is enough postage on the envelope so that it won’t come postage due. Let’s say that, for an average query, the cost is around $3.00 for postage (I’ve had some full manuscripts come with as much as $8.00 of postage on them). I often send queries to anywhere between 2-5 people for review. Thus, I need to have 2-5 copies of the query photocopied and then incur the additional $3.00 per package to send them out for review. Thus, just for me to review your query is going to cost all parties concerned $10-$20. I suppose I could scan the query and create a PDF to mail out for review, but that takes time which could be spent on other things.

I often get asked what authors can do to stand out during the query process. This is unfortunately one place where authors stand out in the wrong way. When I receive a query that requires a large amount of handling to send it out for review, the truth is that I’m much more critical of that query because of the cost both in time and money. When I receive a query that is a scanned PDF of a typewritten manuscript, the first thought that goes through my head is “transcription costs.” The best way to make a good first impression is to follow our submissions guidelines and send your query electronically as an RTF file. If nothing else, you’ll be assured it won’t be returned postage due…