What?

Hopefull writer said:

As an editor what is the first thing that you look for in a peice of writing?

And what makes you ditch somthing before you have compleated reading it?

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I look for a work that fits our publishing criteria--if it's not in our markets, then I won't even read it.

That said, I ditch anything that is poorly written, has consistent grammar or spelling errors, or is yet another version of the same tired proposal I get over and over (like the idea that there aren't enough books for soon-to-be dads, or parenting guides for men, etc. We get dozens of these every year. The reason there aren't that many out there is that men don't buy them).

Believe it or not, I'm in publishing to make money. This is a business, so I'm not looking for the next Great American Writer, I'm looking for a writer who offers clear, well-written prose on the topics we publish. I want to work with writers who send in clean, good manuscripts the first time around, who have done the research, know their subjects, adhere to deadlines, and revise based on our (fairly knowledgeable) recommendations. Every time we have to go through unnecessary extra rounds of edits, fact checking, corrections, layouts, layout corrections, etc., it all takes away from the bottom line.

That's what most editors and publishers want, in fact. Competent writers who do their jobs well so we can do ours well, too.

That's probably way more than you wanted to know.