The first thing I got out of this chapter is that surface errors can signal carelessness, sloppiness, ignorance, or defiance of industry standards to an agent or publisher. Okay. I’ve probably done that. Oh, hell…I know I did that with my first submission. 
Non-standard fonts, weird margins, poor printing, etc., are big turnoffs and should be avoided.
Context is as important as the writing. Devoting time to research, such as figuring out which agent or editor is most appropriate for your work, is crucial. The number-one reason for rejection of a new writer is subbing to the wrong agent or editor. Publisher’s weekly is a good reference but there are others. What other ones have you found that work well? Do you do enough research to narrow your list of queries to the best two or three and is this the best method?
Being explicit when approaching an agent or editor means impressing an agent. This means finding out what an agent has sold versus what you think they have sold, right? Instead of using a shotgun to approach your prey
D) a rifle makes for a better weapon (How many agents are reading this and considering a restraining order aready? ). The difficult part I find with this is deciding what genre an agent really prefers, as well as where some of my stuff ‘fits’. Most agents represent different genres and some do say they prefer certain ones to others, but it seems to be a minefield at times.
Smaller mailings have a better chance of being read than submissions sent in a large envelope. Have you found this to be true? There is also the suggestion that it is better to send a guaranteed-signature letter/package than a first-class mailing. Do you think this is good or bad? I prefer to go with email submissions first anyway but could mailings be better off now as far as the slush pile goes since so many writers have turned to email?
I’m not going to go into formatting too much: I use Times New Roman/12 point/double spaced/one inch margins…but; I saw a small snippet about sending out a printed MS’ with printing on only one side of the sheet, not both sides. I knew about this but thought it was worth mentioning to those who are planning their first mail submission.
I thought the Textual Odds and Ends section was interesting. Question marks are the most often misused?????? (graphic example) Exclamation points (“Hey!!!!!”) run a close second. Fancy words, foreign expressions, and clichés on the first page seem to make for early rejection, too. I've seen a lot of these mistakes in excerpts on the web. Especially with the 'self-pubbed' works.
Non-standard fonts, weird margins, poor printing, etc., are big turnoffs and should be avoided. Context is as important as the writing. Devoting time to research, such as figuring out which agent or editor is most appropriate for your work, is crucial. The number-one reason for rejection of a new writer is subbing to the wrong agent or editor. Publisher’s weekly is a good reference but there are others. What other ones have you found that work well? Do you do enough research to narrow your list of queries to the best two or three and is this the best method?
Being explicit when approaching an agent or editor means impressing an agent. This means finding out what an agent has sold versus what you think they have sold, right? Instead of using a shotgun to approach your prey
D) a rifle makes for a better weapon (How many agents are reading this and considering a restraining order aready? ). The difficult part I find with this is deciding what genre an agent really prefers, as well as where some of my stuff ‘fits’. Most agents represent different genres and some do say they prefer certain ones to others, but it seems to be a minefield at times.Smaller mailings have a better chance of being read than submissions sent in a large envelope. Have you found this to be true? There is also the suggestion that it is better to send a guaranteed-signature letter/package than a first-class mailing. Do you think this is good or bad? I prefer to go with email submissions first anyway but could mailings be better off now as far as the slush pile goes since so many writers have turned to email?
I’m not going to go into formatting too much: I use Times New Roman/12 point/double spaced/one inch margins…but; I saw a small snippet about sending out a printed MS’ with printing on only one side of the sheet, not both sides. I knew about this but thought it was worth mentioning to those who are planning their first mail submission.
I thought the Textual Odds and Ends section was interesting. Question marks are the most often misused?????? (graphic example
) Exclamation points (“Hey!!!!!”) run a close second. Fancy words, foreign expressions, and clichés on the first page seem to make for early rejection, too. I've seen a lot of these mistakes in excerpts on the web. Especially with the 'self-pubbed' works.
