I sought out a publisher for my How To that seemed to be publishing most of the titles I could find in my field that were a.) important - i.e. big names or b.) relevant, and Googled them. There were no submission guidelines on their website, so I called to politely ask for them. I ended up speaking to the editor, who was extremely nice and said they weren't really accepting anything right now, but what did I have in mind? I told him and he said, "that's something we've been missing," (which I knew because I couldn't find anything on this either) and "I'd be interested in seeing writing samples and a proposal." Gulp. I had nothing. Yeah, sure, a full fiction MS, but nothing on this How To yet. I explained that I was early in my search phase and had really just called to get submission guidelines, although I'd be delighted to put something together, which he thought was fine.
I frantically Googled again and found Table of Contents info, checked inside Amazon books for their Table of Contents ideas (Amazon is great for that), wrote a query, Intro, bio and Chapter One and, along with my newly minted Table of Contents, submitted it all via email. The editor told me he wouldn't be able to get to it until end of June, because of prior commitments. Then today he emailed me (totally unprompted) to say it would be a couple more weeks, because he needed to wrap up some projects and wanted to take the appropriate time to "vet" my proposal. I emailed back saying I'd finished chapters two and three (it's been 8 weeks since first submission) and rearranged the Table of Contents and would he like to see them, or wait until he has a chance to review previous material? He said, sure, send them along.
I know I should tell you the name of the publisher, and perhaps this omission takes it out of Backgrounds and Bewares, but I'm afraid that if this editor were to see his publisher's name together with my AW name pop up on a Google search it would be quite obvious who was making this enquiry, and I don't want to sound ungrateful to him, or even more paranoid and naive than I already do.
My questions? Are editors of publishing houses normally so accessible? Do they personally respond to phone calls so easily and in such a cavalier fashion? Do they email without prodding? Am I looking a gift horse in the mouth? What is he looking for in these first few pages? What does this normally pay??? And anything else that you think I could use or need to know!
I frantically Googled again and found Table of Contents info, checked inside Amazon books for their Table of Contents ideas (Amazon is great for that), wrote a query, Intro, bio and Chapter One and, along with my newly minted Table of Contents, submitted it all via email. The editor told me he wouldn't be able to get to it until end of June, because of prior commitments. Then today he emailed me (totally unprompted) to say it would be a couple more weeks, because he needed to wrap up some projects and wanted to take the appropriate time to "vet" my proposal. I emailed back saying I'd finished chapters two and three (it's been 8 weeks since first submission) and rearranged the Table of Contents and would he like to see them, or wait until he has a chance to review previous material? He said, sure, send them along.
I know I should tell you the name of the publisher, and perhaps this omission takes it out of Backgrounds and Bewares, but I'm afraid that if this editor were to see his publisher's name together with my AW name pop up on a Google search it would be quite obvious who was making this enquiry, and I don't want to sound ungrateful to him, or even more paranoid and naive than I already do.
My questions? Are editors of publishing houses normally so accessible? Do they personally respond to phone calls so easily and in such a cavalier fashion? Do they email without prodding? Am I looking a gift horse in the mouth? What is he looking for in these first few pages? What does this normally pay??? And anything else that you think I could use or need to know!