Recently, I got another author submission for this blog with the title Cindy Ervin Huff’s interview on the attachment. I usually download it to Word and rename it with the writer’s name and subject. I don’t get hundreds of submissions a day. I have time to download and rename. Editors don’t. This led me to the list of reminders I’ve seen repeated at conferences and in articles that bear repeating.
Manuscripts get reject and lost faster than fast and this can often be avoided if you follow these familiar guidelines.
- Pubs don’t pub that
There are still authors who use the shotgun method they shot their manuscripts out to several publishers or magazines without doing the research to find out what they publish. Just because the magazine is called Muscle Cars doesn’t mean you can send a random article about cars to them. Most magazines have a theme page. Each month is a different theme with suggestions of what they are looking for.
I write Historical Romance and there are several publishers who don’t accept anything by Contemporary Romance. They have specific guidelines that must be followed about content. In some cases, the structure of the story needs to follow a certain outline. I would be wasting those publisher’s time if I submitted it there. Go to their website and read the blubs about their books. Order a few of their best sellers to see what they publish before submitting your manuscript.
- Bad Titles for Attachments
You title your manuscript Gone with The Wind final draft. But if you leave that title when you added it as an attachment the editor may not be able to find it later. A better title is Margaret Mitchell manuscript Gone with The Wind. Even the title on your email should be Margaret Mitchell’s submission you requested Gone with The Wind. Submission requests mirror so many other emails. So be sure your name is clearly in the email subject line. This is also true for articles.
- Wrong formatting
Times New Roman 12-point font double spaced is the industry standard for manuscripts of any kind. A few publishers prefer single-spaced. Some asked for your scene breaks to be notated differently. And although this can be an easy fix, it is time that the publisher doesn’t want to take. Again, read submission guidelines and be sure your formatting is correct. A big problem can occur if you make corrections in your novel and it skewers the formatting or there are additional spaces between paragraphs and sentences. Copy/paste can create issues as well. Use find and replace to fix those yourself. Clean formatting shows professionalism. Ask for help if you don’t know how to fix it.
- Typos and grammar issues
A great story will often get rejected if there are typos and grammar errors. Publishers get great submission clean of errors. Why bother to correct yours? Even the best of us don’t see our own mistakes. The spell check on your Word program is limited- if it’s a word but not the word you want, it doesn’t know that. Use Grammarly or ProWritingAid to comb your manuscript. Then ask someone else to read through it. Fresh eyes catch typos so easily. Be especially careful that the first page is error-free. Editors are busy people and they read manuscripts all day long. Typos and grammar errors distract them so much they can’t focus on content. Rejection will be inevitable.
- Not reading submission guidelines
I’ve already mentioned this. But it bears repeating. If your manuscript is formatted, clean and fits the theme of the publisher, it can still get rejected if you miss any points in the guidelines. Women’s World still takes their fiction by snail mail with a SASE. Chicken Soup for the Soul only takes submission attached to the form on their website. A few magazines prefer the article in the body of the email although most prefer them attached. Check submission times. There are publishers who only look at submissions from January to June, for example, others have even shorter windows. They want all their submission for the year in that timeframe. So read the guidelines carefully and read it again.
- Mediocre writing
Publishers are looking for great writing. Correct grammar is important but if the story isn’t awesome, it won’t matter if you’ve followed the guidelines to a T. Read best sellers in the genre you want to write. Study what made it a great book. Take classes at conferences or online, read writing books. Keep honing your craft. Make your words shine.
What other things get manuscripts rejected or buried in the slush pile?