Happy Thursday!  Are you ready for the third way to not get published today?

To remind you, the first was: Demand no less than a six-figure advance in your query letter. Your book is brilliant and if Big Publishing House isn’t willing to pay, then there’s no need to submit a single page.

The second way was: Ask friends/critique partners or fellow authors for feedback on your project, and then dismiss their concerns. Everyone is wrong! Head-hopping is okay. Plenty of authors do it. And who cares if you start every paragraph with the same word (“Then…”)? That’s the way you want it. Your baby is perfect and if they can’t see that, then they’re blind.

Now, the third:

Let the editor know how desperate you are to sell to her by including phrases like the following in your query: “I’ll do anything”, “If you don’t buy it, I’ll commit suicide” or the ever popular, “My kids need shoes/medicine/an operation”.

There are no such things as Pity-Contracts. Making an editor feel sorry for you or guilty isn’t going to make her buy your book. It’s just going to peeve her. Editors contract books they are convinced will make their employer–the publishing house–money. Period. They may like a book–even, love a book–and still choose not to contract it. An editor may like you and still choose not to contract your book. It’s nothing personal, and to make it personal is a big mistake.

Repeat after me: writing is an art; publishing is a business.

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Tags: 25 Ways to Not Get Published, editors, fiction, publishing, writing
Categories: writing

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