ACE and DAW books...

Benedetto Youssef

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I've used the search button and tried to read as much as I could about "simultaneous submission."
While some people agree it's not okay, and others argue that it is, there seems to be no clear cut answer. I was wondering, for instance, since DAW and ACE are both under the same umbrella publisher house (Penguin) would it be a bad idea to submit to both of them? Just want some thoughts on all this.

Thank you!
 

amergina

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They're not actually under the same publishing house.

DAW is still independently owned and run by Elizabeth R. Wollheim and Sheila E. Gilbert. They're headquartered with and distributed through the Penguin side of Penguin Random House, but the company is its own. The accept unsolicited submissions, but not simultaneous ones.

Ace/ROC are imprints of Berkley and are owned by the Penguin side of Penguin Random House. They don't generally accept unsolicited submissions.

Now, if you have an agent, often the agent will send submissions simultaneously, but that's quite a different case than with unsolicited, non-agented submissions.
 

Helix

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The odds of a writer getting published traditionally is already low. Throw in major publishing houses like DAW and ACE, and you probably have an equal chance of winning the national lottery. Even J.K. Rowling had Harry Potter rejected a dozen times before it finally sold.

So you might as well submit to both, and if one actually responds positively, just send an email to the other that you want to retract your submission.

I gave similar advice in another thread on simultaneous submissions. I just think it's one of those rules that's safely ignored.


I dunno. If I won the national lottery on the thirteenth ticket, I'd think that was pretty bloody good.
 

Old Hack

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The odds of a writer getting published traditionally is already low. Throw in major publishing houses like DAW and ACE, and you probably have an equal chance of winning the national lottery. Even J.K. Rowling had Harry Potter rejected a dozen times before it finally sold.

So you might as well submit to both, and if one actually responds positively, just send an email to the other that you want to retract your submission.

I gave similar advice in another thread on simultaneous submissions. I just think it's one of those rules that's safely ignored.

It's trade publishing.

Don't ignore publishers' requests for no simultaneous submissions. It's not good practice.

And the odds of getting published by a good trade publisher are different for all of us. Some of us have written wonderful books which are almost guaranteed to become best-sellers, and so long as we send them out they're going to sell, no matter how ineptly we do it; some of us have written books which need to be sent out much more carefully; others have written books which don't have a hope in hell of selling to a good publisher, because they are so ineptly done.

I agree. The odds of sending out an unsolicited manuscript and publishing with a major publishing house is so small that the 'no simultaneous submission' request is somewhat absurd. Places like DAW and ACE probably have some lowly intern sifting through hundreds of submission in the slushpile and barely glancing at the title and a couple of sentences before sending out the rejection in a form email.

Interns are very carefully briefed before they're given access to the slush pile. They're told exactly what to reject and why, and what to put aside for editors to read and why. They might not read a full ms before rejecting it, but that's not because they're sloppy about what they do, which is what you seem to be implying: it's because you don't need to read a whole book of poetry to recognise that it won't fit into the lists at your non-fiction publisher, for example; because you don't need to read an entire ms to realise it's incomprehensible, or plagiarised, or far too similar to a book you've already got in the pipeline. Interns sift all these sorts of books out of the submissions pile and reject them, and then everything else gets looked at more closely. It's very rare that submissions are rejected without being given appropriate attention, because publishers need books to publish. Without them, they're lost.
 

AW Admin

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Anyway, Old Hack, I don't want it to seem like I'm ignoring you. I'm just not a fan of internet discourse. We have separate opinions on this, and I suppose that's that.

If you're "not a fan of internet [sic] discourse," what on Earth are you doing in forum designed for Internet discourse?

Because quite honestly, I can't figure out why you're here, not being a "fan" as you put it.

We exist for discourse.
 
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Denevius

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I apologize. The posts have been deleted.

I tend to stick to critiques, and I suppose I should continue that trend.

Well wishes, everyone!
 

Old Hack

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There was no need for you to apologise or delete your posts, Denevius, just because I disagreed with you. Note that they remain in part in my quotes. And note, too, that I'm speaking from experience here, not on the basis of things I've seen on the internet.

I do hope this won't stop you from participating here again. Your views are just as important as anyone else's, even if I disagree with you!
 

thothguard51

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I am of mixed opinions on this topic. Years and years ago, I followed publishers and agent submission guidelines to the letter. Since those days, I have learned, that submitting to just 1 publisher or agent can take 6 months to year just to get a no thank you note, if that. So if you do this one at a time, you could spend 5 years submitting just one book to five different agents or publishers. No thank you. I had a very well known author tell me to shotgun my submissions and if asked for a full, send them full with cover letter letting them know you have other queries out. He also told me when they ask for full submission, that the author should give the agent a time frame for a response and not the other way around. 12 weeks is my max. He told me, no publisher or agent is going to reject a good book that has sales potential.
 

Roxxsmom

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I am of mixed opinions on this topic. Years and years ago, I followed publishers and agent submission guidelines to the letter. Since those days, I have learned, that submitting to just 1 publisher or agent can take 6 months to year just to get a no thank you note, if that. So if you do this one at a time, you could spend 5 years submitting just one book to five different agents or publishers. No thank you. I had a very well known author tell me to shotgun my submissions and if asked for a full, send them full with cover letter letting them know you have other queries out. He also told me when they ask for full submission, that the author should give the agent a time frame for a response and not the other way around. 12 weeks is my max. He told me, no publisher or agent is going to reject a good book that has sales potential.

Agents generally don't forbid, or even discourage, simultaneous submissions, and their turnaround times to request or reject are generally faster than publishers (in my experience, requests for more material came within a few days, and rejections happened anywhere from hours to months later, with a very few never getting back at all. The average rejection time for me was within 2-3 weeks). This is one reason why trying your luck with agents first is a good idea. The advice I've heard most often (re querying agents) is to go with small batches of 5-6 from your list at a time, and modify your query and (maybe) opening pages if you don't get any nibbles after a couple of rounds.

Querying the markets that take direct subs before trying for an agent probably isn't a great idea, not only because that could take years (if your genre has several to choose from), but because if you go to query agents after you've run through the markets that consider unsolicited slush, the agents will be less likely to want to take someone on who has already been ruled out of some markets they would have subbed to. And it's really to your advantage to have a good agent, because even if they get you a deal with a market like Daw or Tor that accepts unsolicited subs, they can likely get you a better contract and be your advocate and go-between with the publisher.
 
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Old Hack

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I am of mixed opinions on this topic. Years and years ago, I followed publishers and agent submission guidelines to the letter. Since those days, I have learned, that submitting to just 1 publisher or agent can take 6 months to year just to get a no thank you note, if that. So if you do this one at a time, you could spend 5 years submitting just one book to five different agents or publishers. No thank you. I had a very well known author tell me to shotgun my submissions and if asked for a full, send them full with cover letter letting them know you have other queries out. He also told me when they ask for full submission, that the author should give the agent a time frame for a response and not the other way around. 12 weeks is my max. He told me, no publisher or agent is going to reject a good book that has sales potential.

It's best not to send to one agent at a time. But most agents are fine with simultaneous submissions so the scenario you describe isn't likely to happen. If there's one agent you really want to see your work and they won't put up with them, then you have to bite the bullet and wait. Also, I'd recommend an exclusivity period of no more than 2 weeks when agents ask for fulls.

When I was out on submission recently I did have one big-name agent phone me when he received my submission. He said he preferred it for authors to only submit to him, and said he was disappointed I'd sent my work to others too. He doesn't give this information on his website, though. I wasn't sure what he wanted from me at the time but with hindsight I suspect he was hoping I'd withdraw it from all the other agents while he read it. Odd, but interesting man.

Querying the markets that take direct subs before trying for an agent probably isn't a great idea, not only because that could take years (if your genre has several to choose from), but because if you go to query agents after you've run through the markets that consider unsolicited slush, the agents will be less likely to want to take someone on who has already been ruled out of some markets they would have subbed to. And it's really to your advantage to have a good agent, because even if they get you a deal with a market like Daw or Tor that accepts unsolicited subs, they can likely get you a better contract and be your advocate and go-between with the publisher.

Yep.