Take it From an Agent…
Literary Agent Janet Reid recently posted about Why You Got Summarily Rejected Today.
It never fails to amaze me how many people don’t seem to understand that there are guidelines for a reason. Guidelines for your submissions make lives easier for agents around the world, so why would you not follow them?
As I said in Pet Peeve #21 - Questioning Guidelines:
“I can understand if you want to clarify something like a technical term or the like with someone who knows, but my teeth truly grind when I see someone ask something like this:
“The guidelines say to submit three consecutive chapters, but can I submit chapters three, nine, and eleven?�
Yes, I’ve seen it.
First, it’s not “can Iâ€? it’s “may Iâ€?. Secondly? Open a Word document, type in “consecutiveâ€?, and press shift and F7. (I’m assuming if you have a question like this about the guidelines, you don’t have an actual hard copy of a dictionary or thesaurus.) In none of the alternatives does it even hint that “three consecutiveâ€? is anything other than three in a row or three chapters - one after another.”
And yet people still go on and on, wondering if they can do something other than exactly what the agent/publishing company has asked for. That doesn’t make any sense as far as I am concerned.
But if you don’t want to take it from me, then listen to an agent: “There’s a reason that query letters have a certain form to them. There’s a reason I ask for a hook before I ask to read the pages. I’m not doing that to make you crazy. I’m doing it so that when you send me an email, I don’t go crazy, and auto-reject you.”
April 14th, 2008 at 1:25 am
I agree with you on this. If you want someone to consider your work, you have to follow their rules. If you don’t, they’ll toss your manuscript in the trash can, and you have only yourself to thank.
In fact, I got in a discussion with a woman who is an editor herself, who has had a lot of stories and articles published, and who knows the business. I was offering the opinion that, if the guidelines didn’t specify a font there might be a slight wiggle room. Not anything odd, mind you, just Georgia, which is a standard MS font and more legible than most. Even on that, she set me straight: the editors will see a slightly different font and begin to worry what trouble you might cause. So, the chance of making your manuscript easier to read isn’t worth the risk of scaring off an editor.
If even where they don’t tell you what to do, you’re safest sticking to the established rules (Courier or Times New Roman, unless the guidelines say something else), just think how utterly boneheaded it is to go against a rule they bother to put in print for you.
April 14th, 2008 at 1:34 am
Ah, another excellent piece of advice to add on. Thank you.
Doing anything other than what is traditional and/or written in the guidelines if you ever want to see your work considered. And if they went to the trouble of typing up the guidelines, why in the world would they want something other than specified?