|
Presentation
We can’t emphasize this point enough. Once your manuscript has left your hands, its best representatives are its professional presentation and its adherence to our submission guidelines. Please see the Submissions section of this webpage for an exact outline of our Submission Guidelines.
Synopsis
The synopsis should cover the entire plot (including the outcomes of mysteries and thrillers). Publishing is a business. The synopsis is the biggest messenger for your manuscript. It is often your only chance to speak to the book’s commercial value. Editors are looking for a synopsis that clearly explicates the plot in full. This is not the forum to highlight your style but rather to show that the book has a clear arch.
In general, one page of synopsis equals 100-150 manuscript pages.
Length
Most novels are around 100,000 words. Anything under 70,000 words borders on a novella. Manuscripts over 150,000 may be less marketable, as editors must note the price a book will require to be published in relation to its cover value.
Don’t Forget …
- The manuscript should be unbound
- Double Spaced
- 1” margins
- Consecutively paginated throughout
- The header at the top of left of each page should be annotated with the author’s last name and title of the work. (If the title is long, shorten it to one or two key words).
- The cover page – including: title, author’s name, address, phone number, fax number, email address and general word count.
Expectations
Once a manuscript has been accepted by our agency, the author will be sent an agency agreement for his/her perusal, signature and return to us. We will subsequently return a fully-executed agreement with our countersignature. The manuscript will then be accompanied by our experienced letter of support to those editors and publishing houses where we feel it will be received most successfully based on our experience and our long list of established relationships. Once a publisher decides to accept the manuscript, a contract is signed and a portion of the full advance is paid. The editor may then make suggestions amenable to the author’s consideration, a copyeditor will line-edit the manuscript for grammatical errors and consistency and the author will receive a galley of the book for his/her review. (Unfortunately, cover art is often not at the discretion of first time authors.) The author will receive royalty payments from our agency as the book continues to sell. Congratulations.
|
