It’s audacious of us to think we can change the submission process—or it would be, if we hadn’t done our homework. But we have. And we know that editors really do want to receive manuscripts, but only certain kinds of manuscripts, i.e., the ones they happen to be looking for at the moment. So we developed a process that delivers exactly that by filtering out manuscripts editors don’t want to see at the moment.
• First readers filter out manuscripts that don’t meet quality standards.
• Our proprietary software filters out manuscripts that are inappropriate to the house. For example, it won’t allow coffee table books to be submitted to a house that publishes only novels.
• Editors create profiles for themselves and set their preferences about what they want to see. Each preference set results in an additional filter. For example, an editor could indicate she’s looking for mysteries—and she’d get lots of submissions. Or she could indicate she’s looking for “mysteries” that are also “young adult” and she’d get far fewer submissions. Editors can change their preferences any time, and the system immediately responds, allowing through manuscripts that meet the new criteria.
Wait. It gets even better. As part of his profile, an editor can also indicate how often he wants to be informed that there are new manuscripts in the system matching his preferences. If he chooses weekly, then once a week our system will generate an e-mail to him with a list of the manuscripts that fit his preferences and a link to each one. He clicks on the link, which takes him to the manuscript query package, where he can read as little (cover letter) or as much (e.g., synopsis or first three chapters) as he wants. In this way, Creative Byline makes reviewing query packages a part of an editor’s workflow.
Why do you care if Creative Byline is great for editors? Because if it’s not great, they won’t use it. And if they won’t use it, you’re stuck with the old way, submitting your story to an editor that you heard might be interested in what you have (although that could change by the time he gets around to reading your manuscript), and waiting six to twelve months for a form rejection. Is that what you really want?
We didn’t think so.
One Comment
One concern. What I hear editors say most often is that they don’t know what they’re looking for, but they know it when they see it. For instance, they don’t think they’re interested in fantasy, but then they read a fantasy manuscript that really grabs them. Would Karen Hesse’s editor have ever known she wanted to publish a manuscript on the Dust Bowl before she read OUT OF THE DUST? Highly unlikely.
Editors seem to be mostly looking for a “voice” that grabs them, far more than a particular kind of story. How will that voice be defined or described through this process? Perhaps editors will pick up on it through cover letters. I do think this is a terrific idea. In my particular situation, I write about jazz and would love to connect with editors who also love jazz.
I hope editors will remain open to reading new voices and not limit themselves too much to a particular style.