Your Manuscript

When I speak to aspiring writers about what I do during my internships, I am often faced with anger. Everyday I lift a pile of envelopes and read the contents. Then there are two piles. Yes and No. and who am I to decide?

There is more that goes into this choice than you think. I have to decide first of all if the writing is good enough. Can they spell, is it well presented? What is the story line? Who would buy this (publisher wise) and does it fit in with the books already being published?  For example,even if I like it, but I know none of the agents at this agency would take it up: it's a No. 

But seriously, who are these interns? Who in a writers eyes aren't qualified to decide on an author's fate like that. Well we are and we aren't...I would say, after a year of learning and reading and judging, I am pretty qualified to decide which pile things go into. I also went to university for three years to understand how writers edit and work and change their manuscripts, I also heard of advice on how to improve writing and how to practice. I really do think I am qualified to decide. But I didn't have this much experience from the beginning, it had to be learned and as always, reading is subjective, no matter how much you try to remove yourself, your opinion is what counts. 

Why do they give what seems like the most important job to interns? For every book that is published there are 200 which didn't make it. That is 200 underdeveloped, badly timed and misdirected manuscripts just for each book. But more than anything else, the manuscript just isn't good enough. Agents have to work on the books they have already accepted, they cannot spend hours and hours reading many BAD manuscripts day after day. We are the filter system. 

Here are some mistakes that people make: 

Some writers didn't do the right research, 

only sent it to one agency, 

sent it to a publisher that doesn't accept manuscripts, 

didn't send a synopsis, 

wrote a bad/arrogant cover letter/didn't put their contact details anywhere, 

didn't follow the guidelines.

Advice to get published.

1) WRITE. SOMETHING. WORTH IT.

2) Read Simon Trewin's 'letter to an unsolicited author'. You can read the final chapter here. or the full version in the Writers and Artists' Yearbook 2014.

3) Find an agent. by sending your work to as many as possible.

 - make sure you follow the guidelines of each agency. 

 - write a new cover letter every time. 

4) If you get rejected, (which you will) send it in again a few weeks later. Don't mention it in your cover letter and just try again. WARNING most agencies will have a submission log, if you spam them they will know about it and automatically reject you. If you have been rejected more than twice go back to the manuscript. is it really ready?

5) submit the best product you can. re write, edit, change, improve. Or, submit something new.

6) Understand how publishing works, understand that the person reading your manuscript has read 10 already today, understand that you can and should try again. 

It takes a lot of work to get there but if your book is worth being published someone will recognize it.