Your Best Advice?

[Storyteller5]

I've been doing my research, using a lot of the familiar sources (WD Market for ChildrensWriters&Illustrators, write4kids,etc) so I know a lot of the obvious submission rules.

For those of you who have been published, what do you wish someone would've told you when you started submitting? I'm looking for the small details that get overlooked.

:idea:

[TeddyG]

1. Have Patience

2. Always be professional

3. Send your query to those places that match what you wrote

4. Have Patience

5. Believe in Your Work

6. Have Patience

7. Check your letter and ms over and over again for punctuation and spelling mistakes

8. Have Patience

9. Use the Editor's or Agents name if you can

10. And finally...have patience

Teddy

[Jamesaritchie]

I've been doing my research, using a lot of the familiar sources (WD Market for ChildrensWriters&Illustrators, write4kids,etc) so I know a lot of the obvious submission rules.

For those of you who have been published, what do you wish someone would've told you when you started submitting? I'm looking for the small details that get overlooked.

:idea:


Target your submission by reading as many books from each potential publisher as possible, and then mention this is your cover letter.

[Zolah]

I've been doing my research, using a lot of the familiar sources (WD Market for ChildrensWriters&Illustrators, write4kids,etc) so I know a lot of the obvious submission rules.

For those of you who have been published, what do you wish someone would've told you when you started submitting? I'm looking for the small details that get overlooked.

:idea:

Don't see 'getting published' as some kind of Holy Grail. It's an amazing and wonderful achievement, but getting that phonecall is not the end. In fact it's the beginning of another, much longer process: your career. If you bear in mind that signing the contract is actually only one link in the chain then it will stop seeming an impossible dream (and one that you probably despair of quite often), and become something which you can work towards with patience and professionalism and a steadying sense of having done all you can.

Oh, and I always found sending out my mss in white padded envelopes to be a good move. Most mss arrive in brown envelopes, which will make yours stand out a little more, and because it's padded it shows that you care about your ms. But don't sellotape the flap down or stable it - make it easy to get into, so if the editor is taking five minutes break to let his/her eyes wander across the desk, yours is the one they'll be tempted to rip open, NOT the one that looks as if they'll need to fetch a pair of scissors and possibly the jaws of life to get into...

[Storyteller5]

I'm loving the answers you are posting here. Sometimes you know something in your head, but don't think about it in much detail until you see it in writing.

Target your submission by reading as many books from each potential publisher as possible, and then mention this is your cover letter.


How would that read? Would it be something like "I feel this story fits well with other items on your booklist, especially BookA by FinallyPublishedAuthor and BookQ by HardWorkPaidOffAuthor"?

Oh, and I always found sending out my mss in white padded envelopes to be a good move. Most mss arrive in brown envelopes, which will make yours stand out a little more, and because it's padded it shows that you care about your ms.

Ooh, I like that. Something I can do now. *adds envelopes to shopping list*

Thank you, all. Anyone else? :)

[watcher]

Thak you for the information here. I'm not going to add to it, as I'm not yet published.

Now that everyone who reads this is going to use a white envelope, what am I going to do???? LOL