I'm done. Now what?

Congrats on finishing the book! I'm afraid I know none of the answers to your question, but I'll look forward to the replies as I'm hoping to be in the same position as you some time soon (this may be wishful thinking). Congrats again!

A padded envelope is fine.

A postcard they can return upon receipt of the pages is fine.

A legal-sized SASE for their response is fine. (You don't have to spell out that they can recycle, since the SASE is tacit permission to do so.)

I'd use a 9x12 tyvek envelope and just double-rubberband your manuscript (criss cross). Did the editor say he/she would make comments? They rarely do, unless they want it revised and resubmitted. Normally you'd just send a #10 SASE with the ms., and if the ms. is declined, they'll recycle. If not, they would likely return it to you on their own dime if they didn't specify all these caveats in their guidelines. The post card thing is hit or miss. I think I've done that only twice, and one time it was returned, the other time it must have ended up in the trash or tacked on someone's wall (I choose pretty post cards with scenic views).

Also, when you say you finished the book, do you mean you finished writing it, read it over carefully and edited it to perfection, then got a couple of betas to read it for you and offer comments, and then did at least one last final polish? That sort of finished?

Bubble-padded envelopes are fine, if the ms. will fit. But not the shredded crap envelopes. Those things are nasty when you rip them apart -- it will definitely PISS the agent off.


I'd include a #10 SASE and a postcard.

Disposable mss. are much easier, so they don't have to stuff it back into an envelope and mail it. Recycling is cool, plus it's cheaper for you to reprint the ms. than to have it shipped back (with coffee rings and all).

ChaosTitan said:

Also, when you say you finished the book, do you mean you finished writing it, read it over carefully and edited it to perfection, then got a couple of betas to read it for you and offer comments, and then did at least one last final polish? That sort of finished?

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I agree with Chaos Titan. Before sending it anywhere I'd edit it, read it out loud, leave it a few weeks and re-read it to polish it highly. I'd use my beta readers to get feedback. I find there's a huge amount of work to do once the final fullstop has hit the page.

ChaosTitan said:

Also, when you say you finished the book, do you mean you finished writing it, read it over carefully and edited it to perfection, then got a couple of betas to read it for you and offer comments, and then did at least one last final polish? That sort of finished?

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Ihave never got to that kind of finished! ( Shame on me)

Assuming you've revised and done all the right stuff prior to this...

Did the editor ask for the full MS? Unless they asked via a query or the site guidelines say submit full MS, don't send a full. You start with a query.

If the full is indeed the correct way to submit in this situation, a padded envelope is fine. Just don't tape it all to heck and make it hard to open. That's really annoying to the person having to fight their way in.

If you don't need the MS back, a regular #10 envelope is fine (That's what I used). If they like the work enough to make notes, you'll likely get an offer or a letter with comments on revisions. They won't make notes on a MS and send it back. No need to worry there. They don't sit down to read it with that mindset, they sit down and read it until they don't want to read it anymore.

Postcard is up to you. I've heard agents/editors say thiey find this annoying, but others say they don't care. If it gives you peace of mind, feel free.

Good luck!

Good luck!!

Good luck Congrats on getting this far!

-Feathers

Good luck to you, Eldritch!

Just keep in mind that even if it comes back rejected, any comments about the manuscript and its content in the letter are gold, and you should take them seriously and consider altering the manuscript before sending it to someone else. If the comments don't resonate with your sense of what the manuscript needs to be, then you can ignore it - but in my experience I've found agent and editor comments to be extremely valuable, even if they are short, abstruse, and require a lot of thinking to figure out.