I've just received a very short, badly written book. I was about to write a scathing critique saying ‘don’t take on this project’ when I did my preliminary Google check, just to see if the author was in the public eye, or if there was anything else I needed to know. The vital bit of info proved to be [...] that my client had already commissioned the work.
There's always an element of subjectivity when judging manuscripts. I hastily penned a report with plenty of constructive ‘suggestions for improvement’. Most published fiction books are between 70,000 and 100,000 words long and as this project was short, the author could expand it into a well-rounded book and not lose any of the work she had done already.
If you're writing a manuscript you'd do well to aim for about 80,000 words as it'll be instantly more commercial that way. Of course there are several other things to bear in mind for a professional submission.
My top five are:
- If you address your submission by name, check that the agency actually has an agent of that name. Some are named after a long-dead agent. It is – of course – even worse to send a letter addressed to an agent, but at another agency’s address!
- Submit your work in accordance with the guidelines an agency has set out in the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook – so don’t send children’s fiction to an agent that doesn’t handle it – or five chapters to an agency that has asked for three
- Use a standard font and word processing programme. Please don’t send in a submission in a handwriting-style font – it makes it much more difficult to read. Likewise, use a programme that most people can access, such as Word or Adobe.
- Mention your relevant writing experience, such as prizes won, publications you have had, or courses you have gone on.
- Keep your submission short and to the point. It’s great to see an author who has really thought about the marketing of their work, or potential illustrations, but that is the work a publisher will do after taking it on – so it’s not necessary at this stage.
Yours, Cressida
(Editorial consultant)
By reading the article above - I noticed it saying "between 70,000 and 100,000 words," I am not sure whether this is bad news for myself.
I have completed one book of a most likely long series - and after reviewing my computer's word count - I noticed that I had written a rounded sum of 135,000 words.
Will this pose a problem to future publishing, or is expanding out of the maximum acceptable?
Please help.
Hi, many thanks for that Cressida. I agree, and an excellent starting place is also our online listings.
Just go to the Advanced Search and choose 'Editorial, literary and production services' from the dropdown menu under Category.
You'll need to be a registered user to access the Advanced Search. Happy hunting!
Oh dear, I've just finished a story and it's well into 140,000 words. I was google-ing and many authors have said it was luck on their part that they got picked up with full length manuscripts of 130,000 or there abouts.
Now I'm a little worried.
This was helpful though, I always thought they would get annoyed with a call or email to find out a name first.