Imagine this.
You take a year to write a wonderful book. You take another six months to revise and edit it. You wait for a month while your critique partners read through it. You take another two months to make revisions and do a final polish. You research publishers and make a list of suitable ones to try.
Then you lose all your patience, spend ten minutes dashing off a query letter, and forget one or more of the following:
1. You forget to proof read your cover letter:
- You send a cover letter with spelling or grammar errors. You spell Samhain wrong, or the editor’s name wrong. You address your letter to someone who no longer works here, someone who isn’t an acquiring editor, or to someone who works—and has always worked—at another publisher. We prefer a generic “Dear Editor” to any of these.
- You tell us this manuscript will be a great fit for another publisher, or that you wrote it especially for a line at another publisher, or that it will fit into a named heat level that we don’t have.
- You tell us you’re seeking representation for your manuscript, or that you chose our agency because of our impressive client list.
2. You forget that this is a business proposal:
- You use an unprofessional-sounding email address. JimandSusie@happycouple.com isn’t great (if you’re the sole author of the book, why use a joint email address?), JimsLittleBunny@happycouple.com is worse, and SexyPanties@happycouple.com is terrible. It’s very easy to get a professional-sounding Google Mail address, and it makes you come across so much better.
- You tell us that you don’t have enough money to feed your children and that you have to sell this manuscript in order to buy food.
- You include excessive personal details about your religion, exercise regimen, children, pets, day job or sexual tastes.
- You imply that you know something about the acquiring editor’s sexual tastes. E.g. “You’ll need a cold drink after reading this steamy BDSM romance!” or “I hope you enjoy reading this manuscript. You might even learn a few things!”
3. You forget that you want us to want your manuscript:
- You tell us that your manuscript isn’t revised/ polished/ completely finished but that you “just couldn’t wait” to send it in, or that you’re submitting it anyway so you can get feedback.
- You include details about the manuscript that will make us open it with a sinking heart, such as that it’s the first thing you ever wrote, or that you spent “a whole month” on it, or that it’s “a bit slow to get started” but that we’ll love it once it gets warmed up.
4. You forget that you want us to want to work with you:
- You tell us that your manuscript has been turned down by other editors, who were obviously a) stupid, b) lazy, c) soulless cretins with no awareness of creativity.
- You tell us that the whole of the publishing industry is made up of money-grabbing parasites who are looking for bland, low-quality books rather than true literary talent.
- You tell us that you don’t read, like, or respect romance, but that you’re submitting your book to us anyway.
- You tell us that you’re not computer literate, that you don’t like following guidelines, or that you have mental health problems that will make you erratic, unreliable or difficult to deal with.
- You tell us that you’re the next Nora Roberts, Stephen King, or a mixture of both, that your book is a sure-fire best seller and it’s going to make us billions of dollars, or that your book is absolutely wonderful and everyone who’s read it has loved it. We hope these things are true, of course (apart from those of us who don’t like Nora Roberts or Stephen King), but if you claim them in your query letter you sound as if you have unrealistic ideas about publishing. By doing this you also sound as if you might not be very easy to deal with during the two or more intensive editing rounds that Samhain requires.
5. You forget to research standard manuscript format:
- You send in a manuscript with a green background, several different fonts and text colors, everything in UPPER CASE, or excessive amounts of exclamation marks!!!!!!
- You send in a manuscript with tracked changes or critique notes included. Comments like “this doesn’t make sense, change it” or “why is he doing this?” do not fill our acquiring editors with confidence.
Bonus point: After receiving a rejection letter, you forget that you might want to send us something else in the future:
- You reply immediately asking why more reasons weren’t given, argue with the reasons that were given, and imply that it’s our fault because we don’t provide enough sample material to read for free so you don’t know what we really want.
- You tell us that we have a very narrow and limiting definition of romance, probably because we’re women.
- You thank us in a passive-aggressive manner. E.g. “I understand that you felt my hero’s motivation was insufficient. If you’d read further, you’d have understood where I was going with that and why it did make sense. It’s a shame you can’t spare the time to work with aspiring authors—I wonder how many of us could be best sellers if editors were willing to invest a little more in helping us out—but I appreciate the time you did spend on my manuscript.”
- You reply immediately, insulting our company, our books and the genres we publish, plus claiming that you don’t even know who we are and that you submitted to us by mistake. Two months later you send a follow-up email asking why we haven’t responded to your original submission.
- You swear at our submissions coordinator.
I know I shouldn’t be but I’m laughing so hard after reading your post. I’m sure these are all things that have happened at some point or another. I can only hope that these infractions were not all done by the same person and if they were, I can assume they will never be published. I will tell you that I very much enjoy Samhaim publishing and am so glad that I found you. Have a wonderful day! (Please note only one exclamation point.)
That’s a very restrained and acceptable exclamation point, Sharon.
And no, thank goodness, these mistakes were not made by the same person. People do occasionally make several of them, though!
Imogen
Wow! It’s really sad that this even has to be posted. I don’t envy you for having to drudge through all this to find the gems.
I’m laughing (hoping these aren’t actual incidents yet suspecting they are), but If this is typical of what you have to put up with, I don’t envy you your job. Seems as if editor ranks up there with callings such as pastor, doctor, soldier or policeman.
Hats off with infinately more respect after reading this. Hope you find that special one or two that make it worthwhile!
Hi Runere and Danielle!
I have to tell you that these are a collection of actual incidents, with small details withheld to protect the not-so-innocent. But don’t worry, the gems we find do make it all worthwhile—I think our editors would all agree with that!
Imogen
Part of me wants to laugh at this, but the rest of me is groaning because I know all of these incidents can occur. It’s a nice reminder though of What Not To Do.
Thanks for sharing.
Between this and SlushPileHell it’s a wonder anyone could make such mistakes. I just about fell off my chair laughing at this becuase I knew it came from actual people. Thanks for the advice so I don’t mess up so badly in the future with my own work. shakes head How can people be so clueless. Have a great day and thanks again.
Immi, you minx, I nearly sprayed my cuppa across the screen reading this. I giggled all the way through it.
Although it is my firmly held belief that people are mostly lovely, some really are utter twonks who are best kept away from keyboards.
Fantastic post. But, on the plus side, it must make it easier to sort through the post? I’m assuming that that sort of covering letter sends the ms straight into the recycling bin?
Sounds like trouble. Or the start of a beautiful relationship. When someone spends most of their time in the basement writing their masterpiece it crushes them to find it’s not the work of superior scholarship their mom said it was.
These five points might help the basement writer, but will they ever find this page? I’m sending the link to a few I know: the man with the five hundred page screenplay; the man who poured a quarter million into a project with no tangible results; the woman who talks writing, lives writing, and looks writing, but never shows any of her work.
In the end a query letter isn’t an art project, performance art, or confessional poetry. It’s not architecture, school work, or rock and roll. It’s a proposal, as in bended knee with a ring and a smile.
Imagine reading a query to a loved one who could answer yes or no. They won’t like begging or insults, but if they do, good luck.
Great post, thanks.
“You forget that you want us to want to work with you:”
Geez, it’s a good thing you all already stuck with me…
I always think of a query in the same terms of a cover letter for a job. The rules are similar — keep it simple and sell your product without sounding like an asshole.
Great post.
Great tips! I particularly like the one about email addresses. In a way, query letters are like a resume; no “lovebunny” email addresses! (I just exclaimed twice. Uh oh…)
Thank you for this write-up. I needed a good laugh.
It’s amazing that people send out queries without using common sense or doing their research. Great post!
A really good list of how not to do it, not only practical but also very funny. The other one I’ve come across is sending work by recorded delivery and saying you’ll phone in the next couple of days to discuss your work.
Everyone who wants to get published should read this post!
Very funny post, Immi.
I guess an huge advantage to having email submission only is that you don’t have to deal with “gifts” included with the manuscript.
Because nothing screams professionalism like melted chocolate smeared liberally over the pages.
R
This is a great post!
Not only is it a great lesson for those who may not know the rules but a huge chuckle for those of us who do. I had to read it to see if I had made those mistakes with my queries but I can happily say, nope.
Have a great day, everyone!
Loni
I’m glad the post is entertaining and educating for you guys!
Jane, we do try to give every manuscript a fair chance even if the query email is kind of mad. But a lot of these things tend to make the editors open the manuscript with a feeling of “oh dear” rather than happy anticipation.
Imogen
Untrue, you can include “gifts” electronically. You could attach a photo of chocolate or desktop wallpaper. Or some DIY “demotivator” link. A pic of your cat. And your manuscript file could have a watermark of who knows what (like a rose or something), or those graphic background so you can’t see anything on the page, like every page has a seagull on it.
Or some horrid macro to play music embedded. Or an animated GIF. Or a 1×1 web bug gif that’s an href to your server so you know they opened the document and then you could call them five minutes later to ask what they want to pay you for it…since it’s so awesome.
Why do you think some markets take electronics, but only take plain-text .txt or in-line text?
Or you could gift them something really inappropriate, like an author photo that shares way-ah-aaaay too much. And propose it be used as cover art, a la Prince’s Lovesexy album.
But I have a question: You don’t mention it’s bad form to send some virus-infected attachment, like, deliberately, five minutes after the rejection?
So, like, I presume that’s OK, right? I mean, I just want to know before, like, I submit my 250,000 word part one of seven epic historical young-adult time-travel multiple second-person POV Sci-fi astronaut vampire child-torture horror cannibal mystery/thriller Cthulupunk fan fic based on … oh, shoot. I’m having “hysterically inappropriate to Paranormal Romance/ Romantic Suspense” idea block, that one’s not quite horrible enough yet… I think. Or would you guys want to see that one? I just finished it last night… it took me two months….mom says it’s awesome and grandpa checked the spelling and he’s an auto mechanic, so he’s an expert at that. I could add a Christian element if that would help…
(I’m kidding!)
But seriously, I didn’t see “you submit something completely inappropriate to Samhain” in the list. Or was that folded into “you don’t like following guidelines?” under #4?
Oh dear, yes, those would all be very bad as well! We have had totally blank emails with an attachment, which just scream “virus” and which we don’t open.
Sending something completely inappropriate to Samhain’s requirements does happen, and yes, it’s an automatic rejection. Fortunately, though, something like that doesn’t get as far as irritating our editors because the submissions coordinator (me) rejects it. That’s when she sometimes gets sworn at.
Hey, rats. Now I have to strip the musical macros out of my novel. But thanks for the information. I guess I’ll look elsewhere for a market for that cannibal love epic of mine.
Hey, serious question. Have you folks looked at something like naive bayesian filters for spam / bad queries? I’m breathlessly curious to see if that kind of thing would actually be smart enough, but I don’t have the email stream to work with.
The way they work is you set up folders and when you get email you tell the program which emails go where. So hypothetically you could set one up for spam, one for queries, and one for “awful queries.” You spend a few minutes a day working with “training it”, and after a few weeks, I’d wonder if the “awful” box would fill with the right (awful) queries, based on the content of the messages. If your IT people tolerate open source / free ware, there’s one called popfile I used years back to deal with spam coming into a small business. Not trying to sell you anything, here, just curious in the extreme.
I don’t think we have, no, although it sounds interesting!
We have just one person dealing with all the queries, as a rule, and they all get dealt with more or less the same way, even if they’re bad, so I’m not sure dividing them into categories would be of much benefit to us.
Actual spam gets ignored, obviously, but we’re not yet so overwhelmed with queries that we have to treat the bad ones as spam.