Writer, watch yourself.

Scammers want your money, and it’s awfully easy for them to get it by exploiting your desire to be published.
There are many legitimate freelance editors (ahem) who can help you, and some real agents willing to take on unpublished writers. They do exist; however, the industry is positively riddled with scammers. I get submissions every week from “agents” who send crap writing with crap cover letters because they don’t expect the work to be considered; they get paid just for sending them.

Be aware of Writer Beware and Preditors and Editors, where you can find lists of agents and editors both legitimate and predatory, and a lot more information about protecting yourself.
In general, a legitimate agent won’t advertise that they specialize in unpublished writers, or demand fees of any kind upfront. Agents make money when you make money, not before.

A real agent will not EVER send you to a specific freelance editor (o hai, kickback scheme), but you might get a list of good ones out of them.
Legitimate freelance editors will never:

• Guarantee that working with them raises your chance of publication
• Tell you that publishing houses require that your work be professionally edited
• Contact you out of the blue (although they might be referred by someone)
• Evade legitimate questions about their business
• Offer “referral fees” for providing editors’ and agents’ names
• Refuse to edit at least a sample page of your work for you
• Refuse to give you a time estimate for the job
• Refuse to work with a written contract

The only reason my Cv isn’t posted here is that I work for a publishing house, and can’t advertise my freelance services as their employee (we’d be flooded with submissions addressed to me, and it would be a conflict of interest). Catch-22. I’m also telling you all way too much about the slush. You’re welcome.
Watch it now.

What's so bad about the slushpile?

It's not that it isn't possible to cut through the slush and get published. It is. It's just so rare as to be borderline miraculous to get discovered that way. Why?

Because it's a very negative process, going through slush. It's a horrible mountain of horribleness that we have to take apart bit by tiny bit. And the way we do that is: we eliminate.

I have to read this whole thing?

Slush-divers start the day looking for positive elements or potential for improvement. As we watch the pile imperceptibly shrink, though, we look for the first indication of the inappropriate, the bad, the amateur, and the mediocre, with a constant eye out for The Crazy. Good might not be exciting, but a problem to deal with. It's awful, but that's really what we sometimes think when we read something decent hours into the hunt.

It's not that bad everywhere. Baen Books found an ingenious way to crowdsource the slushpile (great article here), and Harper-Collins launched a similar site last year, Authonomy. The first book discovered through the site came out last month, just months after it was chosen to be reviewed by an editor.

This is not the norm. Everywhere else, slush is an agonizing process and will remain so indefinitely, or until the house gives up and relies solely on agents. For us, they stop the mediocre and The Crazy from distracting us from the good stuff. For you, they get you in the right door to the right person.

Find an agent.

Everybody loves this book!

A good quarter of unsolicited manuscripts come with “independent market research,” i.e. the authors shopped it around to friends or, in the case of children’s books, classrooms.

As I was deciding how to write this, I picked up a piece of slush and found yet another example. I quote:

I have been an invited speaker in local classrooms, and each reading from my book was met with a very enthusiastic response. The children loved it! They and their teachers gave me valuable feedback and expressed keen interest in my future work. As you turn the following pages, I am confident you will agree with them…

Of course they liked it. This means nothing.

Your serious critique circle’s feedback is valuable. To you, as a resource. Your friends and family’s feedback is great for encouragement. Publishing houses are not interested in anyone’s take on your work but their own and that of other industry professionals, which is one reason that agents are so valuable.

Your work's just going to have to speak for itself.

Self-Publishing and You

A vanity press is not a publishing house. Self-published books look exactly the same to us coming into slush as any other manuscript, maybe a little crazier.

That said, I do think self-publishing has its place.

No, really.

First, if you have a built-in market like an immensely popular blog, you can make some money that way. There are benefits and drawbacks to working with a publishing house, and you might decide to do it on your own. (But I'd hire a freelance editor to polish it; vanity presses aren't known for quality editorial contributions.)

The other situation is very different. I read submissions about neighborhood history or family stories (especially animal rescues), and I want to tell their writers to self-publish. I don't, of course, because thou shalt not encourage the masses, but I want to. Stuff that's relevant to a specific and connected group of people might deserve a record in book form. It could be priceless to that small circle of people, worth far more than the cost to produce. If there are pictures, even more so.

There is very little overlap between this kind of story and a commercially viable one. Can you spot the difference?

Self-Publishing and Us

Lots of people submit their manuscripts, especially picture books, as dummies. The idea is that they've got a format in mind that makes the book work. This is fine, and on some occasions enlightening. Keep in mind, though, that most publishers will reserve the right to select artwork, which means that any more than a rough outline is a waste of time (and money, if you spend any. Please don't spend any.)

Some people take this a step further and have an actual book produced from a vanity press, in the hopes that this will

• make us fall in love with your finished product
  
• trick us into seeing you as a published author
• present your work in the most professional light possible

It won't. I promise.

The Cover Letter

I'm afraid you're going to have to address it to a dummy editor. There's no other way to go about it. If you do get ahold of a real editor's name somewhere, your submission will still get relegated to slush once anyone opens it. Seriously, I do it every day.

Introduce your manuscript, making the title salient. Briefly describe the key plot points and the hook, the selling point, what makes it special. If you don't know what your hook is, find one in your MS or rewrite it.

Include relevant information about yourself. Have you written anything that's been reproduced for profit? That would be great. Do you have specialized knowledge about the topic of your novel? Excellent. Some degree of recognition in a related field? Fabulous.

Don't be crazy. Don't. Be. Crazy. If I love your MS, but you rambled about unrelated issues and formative influences on your work, it'll make me nervous. There will be plenty of time to play Eccentric Artist when you're a bestselling millionaire. If you put the Crazy in your cover letter, it will not charm us. It'll make us not want to have to interact with you long enough and intensely enough to publish your book. I ask the interns to watch for the Crazy and not to let it near me.

Things Which Lack Relevance
Your 10-page academic Cv.
Pictures of the dog/granchildren who inspired the story.
How long it took you to write it.
Details about your family.
Personal details that don't speak to your ability to write your book.
Begging. Seriously. It does not give us that publishy feeling.
Your independent "market research" (more on this later.) No one cares that your friends and children loved it. We barely care if our friends and children love it.

"Hi, I just wrote a book?"

I literally hear that at least once a week, rising inflection and all. I suppose calling a publisher for instructions is a step above shipping off your opus with nary a "submissions guidelines" googling, but it's a little one.

It's astounding how casually so many would-be writers approach the publishing process. Like it's a hobby that should instantly pay off if pursued one afternoon when your dog does the cutest thing and you just have to write it down. Bingo bango! Career!

Guys. No. We'll address the pet thing in another post, but as for the work you put into writing and getting published, treat it like a job.

ToughLove's 4-Step Guide to Agentless Submitting

1. Study, Practice Writing. Repeat. Read, write, take writing classes. As much as you possibly can. Write your opus. And then write another one, cause the first one's pretty much guaranteed to be crap.
   
2. Research. All publishing houses, even ones who publish the same genre, have distinct styles that they're known for and markets that they cater to. Sending your work to a house it's not a fit for is an utter waste of time. That's not to say your manuscript should mimic their top seller, but it should be compatible with their list in topic and style. A house that specializes in children's literature and young YA is not going to be interested in your erotic historical thriller. When you find a likely publisher, do your research on them, too. If they accept unsolicited submissions, they have guidelines. They will be easy to find, probably in multiple formats. Follow them to the letter. The "acquisitions editor" listed is bogus, but it's the best you can do without connecting with someone at a conference or such.
   
3. Submit. Follow their guidelines, and tweak your cover letter to fit and address their needs. Think about who might want to read your book, and for what reason. Your publisher is going to have to sell it; make it seem possible. Include relevant information on yourself, the topic, and the source of your expertise on the subject. More on that later.
4. Wait. Don't bother checking on status unless your work was requested. No one knows, no one cares. Your manuscript is in a pile, and it will be read. Calling and harrassing the receptionist* has a better chance of getting your MS filed in the trash than hurrying up the process. Again, manuscript submission is like a job interview. If you come across as hard to work with, your work isn't worth dealing with you.

*Be aware that in some small publishing houses (and big ones in this economy, for all I know), there is no receptionist. Which means that sometimes, perhaps most of the time, the person answering your call has a hand in the slush. Conduct yourself professionally, for godsakes.