How to Get Published

by Al Kalar

One of my jobs in this madhouse, is “gatekeeper”. I review new submissions to see if they get rejected up front or considered for publication. I hate saying “no”, but if I don’t, we’d be flooded with less than top notch material.

Lousy material takes too much time to whip into shape and often can’t be saved. Although we edit everything we publish, we’re not in the business of editing poor quality stuff to help a writer get published. There are people who do that and some are very good at it (and some are not). But, even though our editors are great, our job is publishing.

Back in May, I gave you 11 Ways to Get Rejected. Well, what about the flipside? You know, the goal of the submission process - acceptance.

Obviously, the most important thing is to not do any of those 11 deadly things.

We’re strictly an eBook publisher, so we do everything digitally. To get a novel accepted at AKW Books, you should do the following:

• Send us a simple inquiry using our contact form.  Keep it very simple since our contact form smashes everything you write into one continuous paragraph. Example:

I have a romance novel I’d like to submit for publication.

We’ll send you information on how to submit, what to submit, and an email address you can use.

• Don’t spend a lot of time crafting a fancy sales pitch. With us, your writing has to speak for itself. We’re just going to want the basics of what the story is about and the summary we request should give us an outline of the plot from beginning to end (don’t be cute by trying to hide the surprise twist at the ending - surprises are for the customer, not your publisher).
• Send us work that is polished to a high luster. Spelling and punctuation as clean as you can make it. I don’t want to see more than one error per page, preferably less. Most really good authors average an error every 3 pages or so (at least the errors our copy editor catches).
• If you really want to blow me away, give us a story that hits the ground running. No slow starts, no groundwork, no history lesson. Start with a crisis/murder/car chase and don’t let up until the end. Grab me by the neck, pin me to the wall, punch me in the gut, and don’t stop until the end. And use language that will make me forget about what’s going on around me and immerse me into the action completely.
  Okay, not every story is that intense, but if it were, I’d be blown away. At least, give me a fast start that will get your readers immediately involved in the story at an emotional level.
• Give me a story plot that is interesting and will hold the reader’s interest. In other words, don’t bore the reader. Make him care about the characters and care about what happens to them. Give the reader conflict that is interesting and real (trying to decide on chocolate or vanilla isn’t real conflict, trying to overthrow a drug kingpin is). In other words, create a work that has all the elements of a good story.
• A couple of years ago, I wrote a series on How to Write a Salable Book or Novel. There’s some good advice there as to what it takes to create a publishable work. In fact, the archives of this blog are loaded with good advice on writing from a variety of sources.
• If you’re writing a non-fiction work, the spelling and grammar requirements are the same. Other than that, I’ll be looking for a work that is well-organized, compelling (give the customer a reason for buying it), and a start that will draw the reader into your subject.  A good format for reports and non-fiction has always been: “Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. Then tell ‘em what you just told ‘em”. Kind’a like this article.

In summary, follow our instructions and give me something that is as close to “ready to sell” as you can. If it looks like too much work, no matter how compelling, you’ll be rejected. If it’s great writing and clean, you probably have a sale. At the least, I’ll pass it on to another editor for serious consideration.

These notes only apply to AKW Books. If you’re submitting to TOR or some other NY publishing house, you’ll have to follow their (more traditional) rules. But the writing still has to be better than anyone else if you’re not famous.

Tags: accept, conflict, cover letter, crisis, digital submission, eBook, editing, fast start, fiction, immerse, inquiry, language, non-fiction, novel, organization, outline, preparation, punctuation, quality, reject, requirements, spelling, what to submit

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 at 2:00 am and is filed under Editors, marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.