Basic incompetence

[onyxhawke]

I really do wonder how it is that I, or any agent or editor is expected to believe that some people believe they deserve to be read when they can't even put the energy into finding out the basics of submission. Never mind following all of them in their varied and sometimes insane variations.
Just learning them. There are some that there is no excuse for missing. They aren't hard. They don't require much effort. They don't even require you to learn how to program computers. It's just clicking a few icons in your word processor.

Somethings everyone should look into when preparing a manuscript for submission:

• Page numbering
• Margin width
• Standard Fonts
• Title Page
• Header content
• font size

Those are the basics. Honestly. If you can't get these close enough to violate a sexual harassment policy just give up. Really, if you can't figure these out you don't have the ability to understand the written language well enough to produce anything viable with it.

Cover letters are a separate art, writing a good novel is another separate art. Damn near anyone can string together 80,000 to 160,000 words and call it a novel. It might or might not be good. Sturgeon who was an unrepentant fluffy bunny optimist in my book was wrong or lived a charmed life. But even if you can't write a novel that even a 100 people would enjoy reading, you aren't alone. Not to mention it takes longer to type 1000 words than it does to figure out how to format them. It takes less time to format them properly than it does to find them. So quite frankly there really is no excuse for failing to do so. Arrogance and laziness are not valid reasons, nor is ignorance.

Really, if you can't reason well enough to know how to do simple things, how in the world do you expect anyone to believe you can write believable characters, craft a plot that is well executed, write dialog that is effective, and use description like a scalpel and not an bulldozer? This is like expecting someone who fails their drivers license test twelve times to be able to safely pilot a fighter jet.

Comments

[strega42.livejournal.com]

Tell ya what... with your rejection letters (for the ones that seem at least otherwise maybe workable), include a referral to my email address for a rate inquiry as a formatting editor and line editor (separate rates, and I don't do full copy edit and/or style editing!). Make sure I have your required standards. :-D

Face it, there are a lot of published authors who apparently can't read. We may as well BOTH make money off of the lazy ones. >:-D

[transversecity.livejournal.com]

o hi i was going to post my novel in this reply thng but it doesn't let me have enough letters so to get in on this sure thing bestseller just call me ok.

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

What's weird is that it is such a simple thing to find out. Even if you don't take the time to check the submission specific issues, you think they'd know the basics.

[onyxhawke.livejournal.com]

I wish.

I'm sure I'm not alone is this wish.

[matapam.livejournal.com]

::Wide-eyed innocent look::

Well, I check a couple of publishers requirements, and they were similar, so surely that'll work for everyone!

Hmm, I'm sure I've blown at least three of those, at least three times.

[house-pundit.livejournal.com]

I've only ever turned in things electronically. I don't worry about any of that, I just use a standard font and double space it. I don't do anything fancier than italics, centered triple asterisks at scene breaks, dates at the top of scenes, and centered chapter breaks.

Save it in rich text format and send it in. It lets the line editor have it as pristine as possible to prep it for the printer.

The formatting issues would be essential if I were submitting as hard copy, but rtf with nothing fancy was Jim's preferred format for electronic submissions.

If I'm doing anything wrong, nobody's bitched at me lately about it. LOL

[house-pundit.livejournal.com]

Oh, btw, the reason Jim preferred it that way for electronic submissions was that it was a real bitch to worry about which word processing software different authors were using and what was compatible with what else. He wanted it rtf, and keeping it simple was the easiest way not to screw up the rtf.

[house-pundit.livejournal.com]

The couple of times I read slush, I checked it against the submission guidelines first. Ran a spellcheck, ran a word count. If they didn't care enough to even spellcheck it, it wasn't worth reading; if they didn't pay attention to minimum word count in the submission guidelines, same thing.

Anybody too stupid or careless to follow the submission guidelines of wherever they're sending it isn't professional. Publishers lose money on first novels. It's not worth taking on a new author who isn't going to be a pro, no matter how good their first MS is--and if they didn't even follow the submission guidelines, it's one in a bazillion that the MS is anything other than lousy.

One of Jim Minz's flags for not being impressed is people who misspell his name. Imagine that.

If a publisher wants to buy a flying broomstick, don't try to sell him a volkswagon bug.

[matapam.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. I'm quite familiar with what passing through multiple machines can do to manuscripts. Curley quotes turned into "A" cannot be easily changed back. The first time I saw that, I thought the author was trying to give his fantasy characters an interesting accent.

And pictures. At one point someone at Baen got the brilliant idea that they could have the writer attach any art work they had to the manuscript. I was used to downloading 800KB manuscripts, suddenly I'm looking at ten meg files.

However, I'm a lot more easy going about Newbie errors, having made most of them myself. IIRC, my first submission lacked contact information.

[laurahcory1.livejournal.com]

However, I'm a lot more easy going about Newbie errors, having made most of them myself.

I got one the other day for a "fantacy" novel.

[laurahcory1.livejournal.com]

We get submissions that are patently unsuited for us: nonfiction, biography, etc., where with just a modicum of research, the hopeful author wouldn't waste anyone's time submitting to the wrong markets.

[kennycelican.livejournal.com]

Ouch. My apologies, there are three of those that I'd not seen as electronic submission guidelines before. Page numbering, title page (beyond contact information) and header content, specifically.

Again, apologies for missing those in my submission.