Submission Guidelines: What Are They?

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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: WHAT ARE THEY?

If you have chosen to go the traditional publishing route the next thing that you have to do is read the publisher’s submission guidelines.
When you think that you have familiarized yourself with the publisher’s rules, you can now create and send a query, a proposal, or a submission bundle.
As a general rule, if a publisher will accept a proposal from an author without an agent, they will need a query letter, a brief bio of the author (listing your publishing credits or your area of expertise), and a brief 1-3 page synopsis of the book.
Some may also require an expanded synopsis (chapter by chapter) of the book, as well as a general marketing outlook.
If this seems like it is out of your reach to accomplish, there are many writers out there who are able to compile and create these types of documents for you. Some may ask for the first 20 to 50 pages of the manuscript, but they will almost never request the entire manuscript.





The Query Letter

The query is basically a sales letter from you to the editor.
You send the query letter with the hope of convincing an editor to take a look at your full manuscript and proposal.
You have to keep in mind that most editors and literary agents do not accept complete literary documents on the initial contact. That is why you will often read “No unsolicited materials” on many publishing houses’ guidelines.
Large publishing houses generally do not accept literary work without agent representation, so if you want to try your luck with large publishing companies, you may want to start by sending your query to agents first. My next post will be The Basic Query Letter Format