Stand Out From the Crowd When You Submit

By Guest Author

by Suzanna Henshon, PhD

 

 

Many people want to be writers. But few people put the time in to write professional level manuscripts.  So, what can you do to stand out from the crowd in a positive way?  Can you get your work noticed in the slush pile?

 

 

Everyone thinks it’s easy to dash off a story.  But the truth is that writing takes work; Jane Yolen defines this work, in a general sense, as sitting in a chair and typing until a story is done.  Malcolm Gladwell’s The Outliers uses the idea of the 10,000 hour rule to attain expertise in a field.  While you may not have 10,000 hours to spend writing, you can stand out from the crowd if you work hard.  Here are some tips.

  

 

Be professional.  Most writers commit amateurish errors, myself included.  We’ve all sent out query letters with misspellings, or manuscripts that have not chance of fitting an editor’s current need.  Some writers send far too many query letters, rather than just circulating their best ideas.  Other writers even misspell editors’ names.  If you proofread carefully, you can avoid these issues.  And if you’re not sure how to spell an editor’s name, check the publisher’s website or the editor’s blog or Facebook page. 

  

 

Know your market.  Do a bit of research to see if your idea is truly geared to the market you want to reach. Read many recently-published books for the same age group for which you’re writing so you can objectively judge if your approach is age-appropriate. Are you trying to teach an abstract lesson to the picture book crowd? By reading lots of picture books, you’ll learn that you need to hide the lesson in an entertaining story and make it concrete and visual. Are the characters in your young adult novel making only good choices? Teens don’t have the life experience to foresee the negative outcomes to all their decisions. Allow your character to learn from their mistakes.

 

 

Show commitment to your writing.  Just like you would show up for a job, you need to show up at your writing desk at a specified time.  Commit to writing the very best story you can write before you send it out. Lastly, believe in your story before you submit it to publishers.  If you aren’t enthusiastic, how can you expect others to fall in love with your piece?

  

 

Write the best piece you can.  Many times writers dash off stories quickly, and spend little time revising them.  Don’t you owe an editor your best piece, rather than a first draft?  Revising a piece takes far longer than writing it originally did.  So understand that 90% of writing is revision, and commit to time it takes to rewrite, revise and polish your manuscript to the best of your ability. You only get one shot at submitting this work to each editor, so make it count.

  

 

Get to know your editors.  As you start researching editors, you’ll get a sense of their taste, and the projects they work on.  You can start to understand their mindset when you read their work closely.  Once you understand someone’s editorial taste, you’ll be far more successful in writing projects that meet their company’s niche as well.

  

 

Show some interest in publishers.  Read a publisher’s catalog.  Visit their website.  Read their books carefully.  As you research, you’ll develop a better appreciation for their niche in the marketplace.  If you submit carefully, you will be far more successful than if you do mass mailings.

  

 

Reveal yourself in query letters.  In your query letter, it is important to tell the editor about your story and why you are sending it.  But you also want to tell a little bit about yourself.  Are you a teacher?  A freelance writer? A stay-at-home parent?  No matter what your background is, be proud of it.  You’ll want to share a few details about why you are qualified to write this piece.

  

 

Personalize your query.  Your query letter isn’t just a sales pitch; it is a wonderful opportunity to show an editor you have some interest in her work.  It is a great chance to show that you have carefully thought through why your story is a good match for a publishing house.

  

 

While there’s no guarantee of success, doing these simple things will make you stand out from the crowd. And that may be all it takes to nudge an editor into reading your entire manuscript and falling in love with it.

 

 

Dr. Suzanna E. Henshon teaches full-time at Florida Gulf Coast University and is the author of several young adult and middle grade books, and two collections of writing exercises. Her newest book, Andy Lightfoot and the Time Warp, is available for the Kindle on Amazon.

 

This is a post from writeforkids.org. Read the original post: Stand Out From the Crowd When You Submit

The Surprising Benefits of Rejection

By Guest Author

 

 by Jane Choate

 

“We are all failures. At least the best of us are.”— J. M. Barrie, author

 

Most working writers have extensive experience with rejection. When I complained to my husband Larry one day that I had received five rejections in the mail, he said, “Congratulations. When you’ve received ten in one day, you’ll know that you’re a real writer.” (In those days, rejections came in the form of an SASEs, self -addressed stamped envelopes, which writers carefully enclosed with their submissions. These days, rejections typically come via email. Either way, they are devastating.) I wanted to throw something at him. Actually, I wanted to slap him silly, but I refrained. Barely. “Five rejections isn’t enough?” I yelled at him. “You want me to get ten rejections? How many rejections do I have to get until I get an acceptance?” “As many as it takes.” Larry had reason to know about rejection as he worked to get a start-up engineering business off the ground. In his field, rejections came in the form of clients who didn’t renew contracts.

 

(Just a note: Larry and I are still married, having just celebrated our 43rd anniversary.)

 

This piece of conversation has stayed with me, though it occurred several decades ago. It was early in my writing career. I struggled to fit writing in to a schedule already crowded with the demands of being a full-time mother to five children whose activities ranged from flag football to piano lessons to book club. An occasional acceptance on an article or short story to a small magazine kept me going, that and a determination that I would succeed at writing, no matter what.

 

I’ve progressed in my writing, now receiving more acceptances, but the rejections still come. And, despite my vast experience with them, they still hurt. Sometimes, I think about giving up and becoming a rocket scientist or a special ops soldier or something— anything—easier than being a writer. But I keep writing.

 

Occasionally we hear of writers who have never received a rejection. Privately, I doubt those stories, but they persist. If you are a writer who has never been rejected, you won’t need this article and should promptly ignore it in favor of one that resonates with you. If, on the other hand, you have received rejections, if you are still receiving them, then you may learn something.

 

Now that we’ve discussed the pain of rejection, let’s move on to the positives. Can rejection have benefits? Surprisingly, yes.

 

Rejection develops greater maturity both professionally and personally. I am a better writer and a better person because of the rejections I’ve received. I’ve developed a determination that keeps me going, in writing and in other aspects of life. Those dreaded SASEs with form letters that say, “Thank you for your contribution, but this doesn’t work for us” that showed up in the mail with depressing regularity caused me to grit my teeth and persevere. Likewise, when I suffer a setback in my personal life, I grit my teeth once more and press ahead.

 

Rejection creates resilience. Imagine a writer such as described three paragraphs above who has never been rejected. Everything she turns in is perfect and eagerly gobbled up by editors who can’t get enough of her work. What happens if this gifted writer suddenly does receive a rejection? How does she handle it? Probably not very well. Having never dealt with rejection, she doesn’t understand that it is but one part of the writing life. Those of us who have dealt with rejection for years, even decades, know that rejection does not mean failure. Rejection isn’t permanent; it is temporary, as is success. What counts is what you do after getting a rejection. Do you keep writing and keep submitting? Or do you give up? Giving up is the only true definition of failure.

 

Rejection prompts change. If my work had never been rejected, I would have continued writing as I had in those early years. I would have kept making the same mistakes, kept producing work that was inferior with flat characters, trivial plots without conflict, and banal dialogue. As I think back to some of my earlier manuscripts, I blush in embarrassment and thank the heavens that they were never published.

 

Rejection provides greater opportunities. I was rejected by one publisher over and over and over. One editor took an interest in me, though she had yet to buy a manuscript from me. At the time, I didn’t realize how fortunate I was that she even knew my name, much less found something in my work to catch her attention. I learned of a one-time opportunity, to submit a novella to the publisher. (Because I had kept up on news about this publisher, I knew of the project before many other writers learned of it. Never discount the importance of timing.) It was a trial on the publisher’s part, to see how a 20,000 word novella would do in their publishing model, which normally stuck to full length novels. I decided to go for it. I sent in my novella. The editor in charge of the project was the one who had spent time and effort encouraging me. She read my work and liked it. She offered me a contract and remains friendly with me to this day, nearly 25 years following that sale.

 

Rejection pushes talents. I’ve been told that I have a talent for writing emotion. I’ve also been told that my plotting skills need work. Serious work. Such terms as “inconsistent plotting” and “episodic plotting” have repeatedly shown up in rejection letters. I continue to try to write emotional stories, just as I continue to work on my plotting techniques. I know that if I am to get to the next level in writing, I need to build upon my strengths while, at the same time, improve those areas where I am weak. It is a matter of balance—maintaining your strengths while admitting to and working on weaknesses.

 

Rejection motivates. I’ve been writing for 35 years. Over that period of time, I’ve received hundreds of rejections, ranging from short stories to articles to novels. I’ve also received acceptances. Guess which ones motivated me to keep trying to improve? If you guessed rejections, you’d be right. Don’t get me wrong. Acceptances are great. Upon receiving one, I pat myself on the back, preen a bit, and am tempted more than once to rest upon my laurels, modest though they are. But it is the rejections that keep me writing, calling upon skills that I didn’t know I had. It is the rejections that make me want to do better, to overcome my poor plotting skills, to strengthen my characterization, to craft more realistic dialogue. It is the rejections that make me a better writer. As Benjamin Franklin stated, “The things which hurt, instruct.”

 

Rejection is no fun. I still gnash my teeth when I receive one, still wonder how I can garner so many when I’ve been at this business for such a long time. In the end, though, I keep trying.

 

“Always bear in mind that your resolution to succeed is more important than any other thing.”—Abraham Lincoln

 

 

This is a post from writeforkids.org. Read the original post: The Surprising Benefits of Rejection