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: (more…)

by Al Kalar

Every publisher has standards for inquiries. If you ignore those standards, you have a very good chance of being rejected before your manuscript is even read.

The reason behind this is two-fold.

1. The publisher has set up a system in-house that depends upon the author’s cooperation. Some receive hundreds of submissions a day and don’t have time to wipe the drool off the chin of some prima-donna author who thinks the publishing world is drooling at the mouth while eagerly awaiting their particular “next best seller”. They need to have the elements requested, ONLY those elements, and in a format that is easy for them to handle.Those elements may include: submission by an agent (cuts down on the size of the pile), double spaced (allows room for handwritten notes), on paper (no electronic submissions), a cover letter, a synopsis, a particular portion of the entire ms (may be just a couple of chapters or the entire manuscripts), 12-point type (to save wear and tear on the eyes of the employee who has to read the submission), and so on. (more…)