Tuesday 3 August 2010

Submission No No - 3rd August 2010

I think I’ll return to the submissions topic today after an event yesterday which is worth adding to your “things not to do list”.

We received a submission through from the Far East. I’m not going to comment on the quality of the language used, I have nothing but admiration for people who are prepared to write in a second language. My problem with it was the way it was submitted.

Firstly it was sent as an RTF file rather than a DOC. Now, this isn’t a problem usually, but an RTF file us larger than a DOC file especially if it contains images (it’s a technical thing to do with the way images compress apparently). In this instance the author had included an image of their embroidered cover for their book. Not only had they included it, but they’d included it three times.

As a result the e-mail was over 11Mb in size which can be a problem for some e-mail systems which do not allow attachments that large.

Still haven’t got to the meat of the problem. This author was clearly anxious to ensure their e-mail was seen and read by the right person or people, so they harvested every e-mail off the web site and sent it to every single one. So I ended up with five copies of the manuscript! The author even sent it to the feedback e-mail address!

Now, if a publisher has a submissions address on their web site, and asks you to send submissions to it, then it is clearly going to go to the right person (or people). If you send it in this brute force method, what will you actually achieve – other than to potentially p**s off the staff at the publishers. If you’ve p**ssed them off – what chance has your manuscript got? A better one or a worse one?

You do the math. . .

Simple isn’t it – do what it says on the submissions page. Nothing more and nothing less.
The manuscript was rejected, and we’ve changed our submissions page instructions. What was the reason given? We don’t publish self-help books. True, but it was only one count out of three.

See I can be polite. . .

2 comments:

  1. I'll go back to what I said before in that there are certain people who have a mental block when it comes to following instructions. Being Asian I might have put it down to a language problem but, if he's good enough to try and get a book published in English, then I guess a set of instructions shouldn't pose too many problems.

    Can I go back to your earlier post on copyright because I'm still confused about not using brand names? I've just flicked through a Sophie Kinsella and I find in the first few pages she's mentioned Cosmo and Kate Spade (she makes handbags apparently). So how does she get away with this? In any case I would have thought these companies would welcome some free publicity. Isn't it just like product placement in TV and films?

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  2. If only it was just like the product placement in TV and film. They pay to have their products place there. I wonder how many times I could mention Gold Blend instead of coffee if they gave me a lifetime's supply! LOL

    The answer on product names is, it depends. Some you can get away with, some not. Hoovering rather than vacuuming you can probably get away with in the UK, less sure for the US market. Even so, Word still flags that up as a spelling mistake and wants to sue the word you’d apply to a helicopter.
    A mention, you can probably get away with, setting a scene in the local McDonalds as long as it’s not a slasher scene. You’d draw to draw the line at giving your character food poisoning from the meal. Where this is a good alternative generic word, Deborah’s tissue for example, it’s probably better to use it. If there isn’t and you need contemporary characterisation you can probably get away with an occasional Cosmo but don’t set your story in their offices.

    Sorry – it’s one of those areas where the boundaries are not so clearly defined. If in doubt, change it. If your editor advises change, I’d back their judgement.

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