write submission guidelines that get results

© 2011 Pubmission. All rights reserved.

What Are Your Goals?

Your submission guidelines are one

of the most important pieces of

marketing literature you produce, yet

many publishers and agents we’ve

encountered do not treat them as such.

They put little thought into readability,

visibility, or audience. They think of

writing guidelines as a chore or a

necessary evil. And the last thing they

want to do is spend time revising them.

But an effective guidelines page is a

powerful, proactive tool that saves you

time and frustration down the road.

Many publishers we talk to complain

that a high percentage of the submis-

sions they get have nothing to do with

what they publish. Our recommenda-

tion is to first take a look at your

guidelines page and make sure that

your expectations are simple and clear,

with a specific call-to-action.

If you’re about to write (or rewrite)

your submission guidelines, it’s vital

that you first define your goals.

Do you want to:

• improve your company’s

visibility?

• reduce the number of submis-

sions you receive?

• foster a productive relationship

with future writers?

Recruiting writers isn’t that much

different from marketing a website. A

website owner might love to check his

site’s analytics to see how many visits it

has received, but if it’s an e-commerce

site and no one is buying what he’s

selling, the number of visits he gets is

useless.

The problem may be that his

marketing copy is unclear or cluttered.

He hasn’t done his keyword research or

posted a strong enough call-to-action.

HOW TO WRITE

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

THAT GET

POSITIVE RESULTS


He’s attracting the wrong visitors. Even

though a large number of people are

visiting his site, it does him little good if

none of them are buying customers.

The same goes for the submissions

process. You might be

attracting a large

number of submissions,

your filing cabinets or

the corner of your office

might be overflowing

with manila envelopes.

But it does you little

good to spend all that

time looking for a

needle in the haystack

just to come up empty.

The truth is, if

you’re educating your

writers on exactly what

you’re looking for using

a powerful, concise

selling message (yes,

you’re selling to them),

then the slush pile will

become more produc-

tive for you. Sure, you’ll

almost certainly get the odd manuscript

that has nothing to do with what you’re

seeking, but if you can reduce the

percentage of those mismatches,

wouldn’t it be worth your time to revise

your guidelines?

Visibility

Many publishing houses have now

closed their doors to unagented submis-

sions. But if you’re reading this, you

might not be at that point; you’re not

ready to jeopardize your

firsthand connection to

new writers. Not yet…

You might also be

cringing at the thought

of increasing your

exposure to writers

because you’re equating

visibility with the

number of submissions

you receive. But make

no mistake: If you’re a

successful publisher,

you won’t stay invisible.

If you’re producing

quality content, if you

make a deal that’s

announced on

Publisher’s Lunch, if

one of your books is

marketed on a radio

interview or at a book

signing, writers will find you. It’s

inevitable.

So you have two choices: sacrifice

your direct connection to new writers, or

educate them. Let them know exactly

what you expect. And make this

information readily available.

Courtesy of Cory Doctorow

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Writers Are Readers, Too

There’s a danger involved with closing

your doors to submissions or offering

unrealistic submission requirements:

frustrating large numbers of writers can

backfire. After all, they’re writers! In this

age of social networking and easy access

to digital soap boxes, upsetting those who

are proficient at, or at least passionate

about writing can be detrimental to your

image.

Writers who want to submit to you

might also be some of your best custom-

ers, customers who actually look at the

publisher’s logo on the spine. They’re

likely interested in the topics you publish

and might have some influence over

other potential customers. By adopting a

reasonable submissions policy, you have

a better chance of converting these

writers into evangelists rather than

detractors. Many of them will even

forgive you for rejecting them.

That’s why you need an effective

submissions policy that invites and

educates your writers.

The Submissions Funnel

Your company’s success is almost

completely dependent upon the quality of

the content you produce. Though market

shifts, a poor economy, or high produc-

tion costs can all affect your bottom line,

in publishing, intellectual property is

what you sell. If you restrict the flow of

submissions, if you cut yourself off from

quality writers because you’re afraid that

you’ll get bombarded with manila

envelopes, your content will suffer.

Think of the submissions process as

something akin to a funnel. Wide at the

top, narrow at the bottom. You might

already have your guidelines posted with

a popular listing service such as Writer’s

Market or Publishers Marketplace, but

have you thought of other venues to

advertise your needs?

• Are your guidelines posted on your

Facebook or LinkedIn pages?

• Are you using SEO related to the

genres you publish on your web

guidelines?

• Do you have a printed submissions

brochure that you can hand out at

trade shows?

• Do your acquisitions editors write a

blog and grant interviews to other

bloggers?

The Submissions Funnel



The more information you have out

there to let writers know what you

expect, the better. The trick then, is to

craft guidelines that will narrow down

the number of writers moving through

your funnel, so that the submissions

reaching your slush pile accurately match

your needs.

Sample Guidelines

Let’s look at the typical structure of a

submission guidelines page:

Company info

In addition to telling writers what you

publish, don’t be afraid to shed some

light on how your editorial process

works. Tell them how long it takes to

produce a book from initial manuscript

to distribution. Tell them how many

editors you have on staff. Tell them what

they can expect from you in terms of

editing, layout, and marketing.

Genres

Be as specific as possible about what

genres you publish. If you’re fuzzy about

this, the percentage of submissions that

don’t match your needs will increase. For

example, if you’re a publisher of K-8

educational materials, don’t say that you

publish children’s literature. You’ll find

yourself swamped with picture books

that have nothing to do with your

publishing plan.

Specific/current needs

Don’t be afraid to let writers know

what you’re currently hoping to add to

your list. Some might worry that this will

show your hand to the competition, but

the potential gain of a great new author

far outweighs the result of a competitor

trying to jump on your bandwagon. If

someone tries to copy you, take it as a

compliment.

Contract/fee arrangement

Again, though you might worry that

you’re revealing too much about how

your company operates, contract terms

are first and foremost on authors’ minds.

They want to know if it will be worth

their time to submit to you, so let them

know if you offer a flat fee or a royalty,

and don’t be afraid to give a range for

both. They’re going to find out eventu-

ally, and the fewer surprises the better

when it comes to contract negotiations.

Tips/tastes

Though your guidelines may cite the

genres you publish and your current

needs, it will help considerably during

the submission review process if you

share with writers a few clues to what you

like and don’t like. Let them know your

tastes, and it doesn’t hurt to use this

section to let some of your company’s

personality shine through.



Format requirements

Telling writers how you expect them

to format their submissions can be a

tightrope walk. If you’re too permissive,

you’ll spend more time trying to

determine what you’re getting in each

submission. If you require submitters to

jump through too many hoops, you’ll

discourage writers (good and bad) from

taking the time to submit to you. And

you’ll find that a good number of

submissions won’t follow your rules

anyway.

But be sure to explain clearly how

you want writers to send work to you

(i.e., through the mail, e-mail, website,

etc.) and if they need to include a cover

letter and SASE. Think of this as your

call-to-action. Just as in your marketing

literature, it needs to be easily visible.

Response

deadline

Be realistic in your

estimates of when

you’ll respond, but

assure writers that

you will respond to

every submission.

Even if you tell writers that a SASE is

required, it’s generally a good practice to

respond even to submissions without

them. (We won’t tell if you won’t.) It

takes much more time to respond to an

angry author via phone or e-mail than it

does to put a stamp on an envelope.

Common Mistakes

Too much text

Though it seems to run counter to

what you might expect, the more text

and requirements you have for submis-

sions on your site, the less likely it is that

you’ll get what you’re looking for.

Why? Put yourself in the writer’s

position. Submitting to publishers is a

tedious, painstaking process with a low

chance of reward. Putting too many

roadblocks in your guidelines will deter

just as many good writers as bad. Why

go through the hassle? they might ask.

There are plenty of other publishers out

there who don’t require a ten-page

marketing analysis formatted in Courier

12-point font with no simultaneous

submissions.

Too many stipulations will only result

in an influx of submissions from authors

who are submitting to you for the sake of

getting their work out there—and they

probably didn’t bother to read your

guidelines thoroughly, or at all.

In short, don’t put unnecessary

impediments in front of good quality

writers who might not have hours to

invest in submitting to you. You can be

specific about what type of material you

want, but be succinct and be reasonable.



No headlines

Your submission guidelines should be

written just as you would write any other

piece of marketing copy—with the

understanding that your readers have

limited time and attention spans. If your

guidelines are on the web (and they

should be!), then you should be taking

SEO into account along with basic

readability.

Central to this is including clearly

worded, short headlines. These help

writers navigate easily and quickly from

section to section (outlined above) and

also build your visibility on search-engine

rankings.

Large blocks of text

Again, we are always amazed by the

guidelines pages we visit that are not

written for readability. If you hide key

information in large chunks of impene-

trable text, it makes it much less likely

that a writer will find it and submit the

work you’re looking for. In addition to

headlines, use short sentences, concise

language, and bullet points.

Hiding your personality

Writing your guidelines in a style that

reflects your list. If you publish humor

books, your guidelines shouldn’t be dry

as dirt. You want to attract writers who

share your sensibilities so make sure that

your personality, or brand, comes

through loud and clear.

No simultaneous submissions

Some publishers still ask that they get

exclusive rights to a submission (but

their numbers are dwindling). They

might have many good reasons for doing

this, but we believe that saying no to

simultaneous submissions is a deterrent

you can’t afford. It may reduce the

number of manuscripts you receive, but

it may also reduce the percentage of

quality submissions in your slush pile.

Unless an experienced writer wants

to submit to you more than anything else

in the world, there’s a good likelihood

that she’ll either pass on submitting to

you or send something to you—and five

other publishers—anyway. It’s also a

difficult policy to enforce, and most

writers know that. However, it’s a good

idea to ask writers to tell you if they’ve

signed a contract with another publisher

before they hear back from you.

Poor visibility (where’s the

link?)

If you believe that your submissions

are a valuable resource, then make sure

that the link to your submission

guidelines is in plain sight on your home

page and elsewhere.

Don’t hide the guidelines in an “About

Us” or a “Contact” menu. The more

impediments you put in front of writers

interested in sending you work, the more

likely it is that you’ll get submissions that

don’t match your needs.



Metrics

Are your submission guidelines

working the way you’d like them to?

There’s no way to know unless you record

some key metrics. We recommend that

you create a log of every submission you

receive in either a spreadsheet or

database file. In addition to the basics,

such as author name, title, and contact

info, measuring the following areas can

help you determine if your message is

getting across in your guidelines—and if

further revision is necessary.

Trends/keywords

Your slush pile can reveal some

important data regarding current and

future trends in your industry. You might

even discover some new buzzwords that

haven’t presented themselves to you

through your market research. For each

submission, record a few keywords to

describe it. This is also helpful info to

share with your writers via a blog post.

It’s important to let your writers see what

the competition is up to.

Review time

This is perhaps the most important

metric to track, and most publishers fail

to do so. Ask your editors to record how

long it takes them to review submissions,

either per submission or session. Then

review this figure each month to see how

much of your time the slush pile is

consuming. If the time is going down, see

if this corresponds to a recent revision of

your guidelines. Tracking this figure

throughout the year can also help you

with scheduling. Some months might be

consistently busier for submissions than

others. Knowing this in advance can help

you prevent a backlog.

Success ratio

The number of publishable works that

actually come from the slush pile will

likely be very low. But that doesn’t

discount the value of keeping a close eye

on this figure. Your success ratio can

provide some great insight into the

effectiveness of your submission

guidelines.

Match percentage

You might also want to track the

number of submissions that are

completely inappropriate for your

publishing company. Hopefully, after

revamping your guidelines, you’ll see this

figure drop dramatically.

Spreadsheet exported from Pubmission



Don’t Dread the Slush Pile

Even if you’re still getting more

submissions than you can handle, there

are tools out there that can help.

Pubmission is designed not only to

help you sort and search your submis-

sions online, it also works to educate

writers on how to submit to you. It shows

them if their submissions match up with

your needs and lets you use the site to

create an effective guidelines page.

And with our staff of experienced

editor coaches, we can help push writers

in the right direction so you don’t have to

do all the heavy lifting.

Check out Pubmission at

www.pubmission.com.

Tell Us What You Think

We’d like this article to be a working

document that evolves with the industry

and your feedback.

To help us achieve this, your opinion

is always welcome and necessary. So let

us know what you think about this

article. Send your comments to

[email protected].

Thanks and good luck!

The Pubmission Staff

Sample Submission Dashboard on Pubmission


write submission guidelines that get results

Education