Resources

There is a huge amount of advice out there for authors on how to prepare for submission and I’m sure a lot can be conflicting.

First up – a little reassurance, there is no perfect cover letter or synopsis and a bad one of either isn’t going to stop the right agent from falling in love with your book so don’t put too much pressure on yourself. However, there are a few things you can do to make sure you’re giving yourself the best shot at success and not getting in your own way.

Please read each agent’s submission guidelines and send what they’ve asked for in the format they’ve asked for it. They have worked out what works for them and adhering to their request means they can get through their submissions faster and get you that response you’re desperate for. Similarly, only send to agents who represent the type of book you’re writing – clogging up an agent’s inbox with books that are in a completely different area of the market to what they’re looking for only slows them down and doesn’t improve your chances. There’s a reason they don’t represent that type of book and it isn’t just that they haven’t found the right one yet (this is about reading taste and industry contacts. You want the right agent for your book, not any agent).

Here’s what I like to see in a submission (and generally, everyone will want you to include these, even if they may have slightly different preferences for the submission package as a whole):

Cover letter

A strong cover letter can help me see what’s going to grab a reader about your book, where it sits in the market and how I might be able to help you get a publishing deal…keep these in mind for your letter

Information about your book

Title/Category/genre/Age range (for children’s fiction)/Word count

Pitch line

Think about grabbing attention – what is going to intrigue most about your book? Can you hook a reader in with a single line?

Blurb

A longer pitch to give the reader an idea why they’re going to be interested in your book – for fiction, some plot information but mostly this is about making the reader care about your character’s predicament. This is a useful starting point: When A (Event) happens, B (Character) must do C (Action) otherwise D (Catastrophe) will happen.

Market awareness

Who is your intended audience, what else are they reading? is this a standalone/trilogy/series, do you have other ideas for the same market…?

Biographical information

Keep this pertinent to the book – why is this the book you’ve written? How has your life experience informed it?

The agency

What is it about HS-LA appealed to you? What makes you think we’d work well together?

Synopsis

This is usually one side of A4 in size twelve font. It can be single spaced but please don’t play with your margins to make this fit and, if possible, leave a line space between paragraphs – white space on the page is really helpful.

Your synopsis is a sense check for the agent to make sure that your plot is working. But rather than trying to cram in every chronological event, think more about your character’s emotional journey and the cause-and-effect structure of your story. What do they want at the start? What’s the inciting incident? What are the main turning points? Describe the moment when they think they’ve failed and how they overcome that. Tell us how they’ve changed as a result of the story.

Keep this stylistically simply – but give us the spoilers.

Have someone who hasn’t read your novel read your synopsis – can they tell you what happens in your book? Do they understand it all?

 

Sample Material

Wait to submit until you’ve finished your novel (this is slightly different for non-fiction as that is often sold on proposal so you don’t need to have the full manuscript finished), and please don’t send your first draft. At the very least, put it to one side for a few weeks and then give it a read through with fresh eyes. Make sure you’re sending the best work you can.

When you’re ready, send the opening of your book to the word count/page or chapter length specified by the agent.

 

Sending Attachments

When an agent requests attachments (I don’t for initial submission, but will do if I call in your full manuscript, and this is worth remembering for the future whenever you’re sending work to someone in the publishing industry) it’s really helpful to do the following

• Use size 12 clear font and double line spacing
• Include page numbers
• Put your title and author name in the header/footer
• Use a file name that is easy to identify – ‘final manuscript’ might be identifiable on your computer but an agent or editor could receive hundreds of these