Lessons Learned #1: Follow Directions
We’ve been told this since before we could read and write, but it’s still excellent advice when you’re querying or submitting your work to an editor or publisher. This is probably more useful to new writers, but it never hurts to remind people why it’s important.
Bottom line here before the examples: editors can form an opinion of how easy you are going to be to work with by whether or not you can follow simple instructions and how well you can communicate. The publishing process requires a lot of communication, from contracts to editing to working with cover artists. Any time you fail to follow instructions delays the process.
Just as important: How well you pay attention to detail in submitting your story is probably a good indicator of how much attention you paid in writing it. If you don’t go and check the call details before subbing, does that mean maybe you didn’t go back and revise your story before sending?
While following all the instructions didn’t earn anyone extra points, not following them made an impression on me, though I hadn’t realized it would.
I’ll be very honest here and tell you that when I read cover letters I was looking for very specific basic information about the story, and I skimmed or ignored everything else except what I needed to know. I went back and read some when making the final decisions, but busy editors really want to see that you’ve provided the basic details they need and probably won’t take time to read much else. So send what they asked for and don’t send what they didn’t….
Instructions not followed:
–Sending a het story when the call clearly asked for GLBT content. (I didn’t even read that one)
–Sending a story which was not a fairy tale, when the call clearly asked for fairy tales (I had to read the story to discover this, so just a waste of my time, which really pissed me off)
You probably didn’t think people would ignore the most basic instructions like that, did you?
Before I started reading a single story, I made a spreadsheet of all the stories and downloaded then into folders for m/m or f/f onto my computer. I needed to know title, word count and pairing to do this, all information that should be easy to find in the cover email, right?
But people still failed me:
–Not providing the title of the story in the cover email, forcing me to open the document to find out–honestly, isn’t the TITLE of your story the number one thing you would put in the email?
–Not indicating if the story was m/m or f/f, forcing me to open the document to find out
–Not putting word count in the cover email, forcing me to open the document to find out. Half of people didn’t even put it in the document itself.
–Not providing other specific information required as listed in the call for submissions, forcing me to email and ask for it
–Sent me docx when I specifically said not to (I can’t open them)
–Saved their story with the title “Fairy Tale” — 20 files with the same name would be awfully confusing. I had to rename all of those files myself
–Told me they didn’t send the mini-bio because it was a waste of time until they knew if their story was accepted or not.
Wow, that last one totally impressed me.
All of this is about making the best first impression, which I’ll go into in a later posting.
Was this post useful for you? I’d like to continue with more of these, but I won’t know how much interest there is unless people comment. Thanks.
4 Responses to “Lessons Learned #1: Follow Directions”
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Ack! I hope I didn’t do one of those things for the angels & demons submission, although I probably did. It’s been awhile and I can’t really remember. My apologies if I did.
If time is money you’ve made me a wleaither woman.
I’ve read enough stories like this to no longer be surprised, but I am still disgusted that people do this. There are so many writers competing for only a handful of spots, you would think they’d do everything they could to stay above the cut-off line.
Not sending GLBT content?? C’mon people, you have zero chance on that one. I’m guessing these are the same people who complain about how no one understands their work.
That being said, I’m glad to hear you don’t eliminate every slip up. We are, after all, human, and some could be honest errors made because nerves are frayed from preparing to be judged.
Thanks for sharing your experience with this antho. I have an even higher respect for editors after reading about renaming several files with the same title!
Pia
Cool site, love the info.