What Makes a Publisher Smile

Next summer Intrigue Publishing will release a Young Adult adventure novel called The Boy Who Knew Too Much by Jeff Westhoff.  It’s going to be a great book, but the reason I’m talking about it now is that it is a great manuscript.When we receive a new manuscript it’s always a crap shoot, so I greet each one with suspicion.  This manuscript quickly dispelled my doubts. First, the author took the time to read our submission guidelines and sent just what we wanted: the first 50 pages, a synopsis and a brief bio.  Those 50 pages were free of spelling or grammar errors, an indication that he actually read it a couple times before sending it. You may not understand this, but publishers can take bad spelling or grammatical gaffs as a sign of disrespect. I didn’t see any of the usual signs of writers who don’t read: no overuse of ellipsis or exclamation points, no capitalized words or fragment sentences everywhere.  The writing was clear and understandable.And the story was there. It hooked me immediately, and I knew very quickly where it was going.  The 50 pages did exactly what we wanted them to do. They left me eager to read the rest of the story.The rest of the story was equally solid, which I might not have noticed if the rest of the manuscript had not been as clean as the beginning.  By doing a good job of proof reading and pre-editing, Westhoff had removed the distractions that might have kept me from seeing the smooth flow and rhythm of his manuscript.  After we accepted the book we heard similar praise from our proofreader and our content editor, who called it the cleanest manuscript she had ever worked on.Was it perfect? Of course not.  Everyone needs an editor.  But it showed the level of effort we hope for.  We want to see that the writer paid attention to detail and wanted to impress us, not just with his writing, but with his professionalism. This writer did.  And more. He made us smile.
If you have a crime fiction, YA, Contemporary drama or sensual romance manuscript you are proud of, Intrigue Publishing is accepting submissions at http://www.intriguepublishing.com