manuscripts | separating the dreck from the good

The manuscript can be delivered in its whole, or as part of a proposal or query as above. If an author submits a straight manuscript, chances are that it will come through an agent although a lot of good work can come in over the transom and you just don’t know who you’ll discover in the slush pile… Think Joyce or Fitzgerald that came in through the slush pile, essentially. A good editor will be able to separate the "dreck" from the good.

Today, most manuscripts that come in have already been edited by their agent as the agent takes on more and more the role of editor helping shape and mold the manuscript and point the author in the right direction. Chances are, that so much of what you get these days will not need as much editing as it would have about ten years ago . Things have changed with the advent of agents.

Most of the best work will arrive through agents but don't dismiss other works that come in over the transom - as noted above, some of the best work may come in over the transom. The difference between a work that comes in on its own verus an agented book is not the quality of the manuscript, by any means - only that one author was savvy enough to get representation, but it may have little or nothing to do with talent. This is for you and you only to judge as you evaluate work, tho note that it is interns who evaluate much of the slush.

There are ways to determine if there is anything good in the slush pile:

1. have interns write a brief paragraph about what the manuscript is about.
2. whether or not they would publish it and why.

They should do this for virtually every manuscript, barring the real losers, and hand this to the editor with their note. This was a practice used at The Atlantic Monthly and it worked extremely well and we found a lot of work through the slush pile using this method.

the proposal | a brief outline

The first thing you want to look at is how many copies the book can sell and how – so if you’re doing a book on Shakespeare, you’ll want right up front how often he is quoted each year, how many copies sell of his or her collected works, etc etc why he or she is big in the collective conscious or unconscious. This is really the first part of the proposal where the author should persuade you with every marketing reason why you should publish this book and stay in the black if you do so; simply saying it's a "good book" is not enough.

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  A marketing section to detail the B&N ranking you expect – where you will help promote this book, which areas you feel you can sell it in, amazon sales ranking, websites that the book can be marketed to, stores, people the author knows who can blurb or help – this sort of thing is important.
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  A table of contents with each chapter and what it will be called (rough title) and a synopsis of that chapter.
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  Production: your author should have information such as how many pages they expect the book to have, how many illustrations, the sort of rights and permissions they anticipate for images in the book (because as the publisher, you will be the one responsible for paying for this.) The author needs to, as much as possible, realistically assess what they expect the rights for any images in the book.
  
  A full bio, third person, complete with publications and any awards etc.
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• A complete outline of the book with chapter heads and a synopsis of each chapter - so you're looking at the book as the author expects it to play out. Each chapter should be no more than two or three sentences long and indicate where illustrations will possibly go or if appropriate, any sidebars and the like.
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• Finally, you want to give the publisher:
• a total estimate of page-count
• number of illustrations
• due date when you think the book will be done etc.
• word count (which should be part of your page count)
• categories this book might fit into - which genre
• names of authors (generally well-known and and with authority, who would back this book by giving a blurb for the back-ad.) This helps more than you know in terms of lending legitimacy to a book.
  
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• This is what you are looking for in a proposal.

the query letter

The Query Letter

When you query a publisher you may get a faster response as opposed to a full proposal or manuscript but not necessarily a favorable one.

There is such a thing a giving too much information, but query letters tend to provide too little information…you want to include enough to get the editor’s attention – The query should not be too broad ranging or brief. The sort of thing, “I grew up in the former Yugoslavia and I’ve written a book about it…” is not going to pass muster. You need something more solid than this.

As an editor, you’re looking for a writer who is authoritative, has the personal experience if this is a personal story, has a style, which will even show in the letter, and a story that has a real hook. It should be one of the more fascinating letters you read in your life, not just another “I want to write a book about Boston because it’s great…” or some such, but a letter that has some potential at the other end of the line…. overall, there are too many query letters, I think, and most of them are bad. It has become a lazy way out with people writing a one page letter that is milque toast bland.

Your author should, if they are smart, provide a good bio of themselves (third person) with their credentials, a few sample pages perhaps, a rough outline or table of contents doesn't hurt, and the letter itself is a writing sample, so pay attention to how that is written as well, because if the author did not, then that's important too.