Please welcome Susan Hornbach, an author/writer of children’s literature. I met Susan on LinkedIn and she seemed to have some good advice for writers who want to publish, so I asked her to write a guest blog for my web site. She did so in the form of an interview:
Denise: Welcome, Susan! Thank you for visiting today and sharing some basic information for submitting your work to a publisher.
Susan: It’s my pleasure, Denise. When I started out I was grateful for any advice anyone was willing to share with me. In the following article I state a few basic rules for making your work look professional and acceptable to a publisher.
With that said your work must first be properly edited, tightly written, and formatted properly in order to ever be accepted and published by a publisher. There are many self published books out there on the internet that are unprofessional. So whether you self publish or choose a publishing house, always make sure you have a professionally written manuscript.
A professional editor for your finished manuscript is a good idea if you can afford one. The Institute of Children’s Literature is a good place to start if you wish to become an author of children’s books. The course: Writing for Children and Teenagers, is an on line course they offer with a one on one teacher to see you through the entire course. When you are finished, you will most likely be well equipped to write and submit children’s literature. My opinion of this school is one of happy memories and learning more than I had ever imagined.
Below I have written an article to help you better submit to a publisher in proper form.
Submitting Your Work Properly: A Better Chance of Getting Published
By Susan Hornbach
”Book Markets for Children’s Writers” is a book that supplies you with publishing companies to submit to. For children’s literature submissions, there is a book for magazine submissions and one for book submissions. These books have samples of proper forms to use for submitting to a publisher. Along with the proper format for submitting, you will need to have a short cover letter to accompany your submission. Submitting without proper form will look amateurish, and will most likely be rejected without even being read.
When submitting, include your BIO with links to your clips, or a listing of work published. Do your very best to look professional when submitting. It is most helpful to getting accepted. If you are not published with pay, maybe you have clips of work published unpaid. We all have to start somewhere, and many publishers understand that, so if you have no published work, just send your submission along with your cover letter, and a bibliography, or a resume’, if that is what the publisher is requesting in their guidelines. (Always read the publisher’s guidelines first.)
Write a cover letter with the first two or three lines grabbing the editor’s interest. Editors read a lot of submissions, and there is no time in the beginning of your cover letter for setting up a back ground.
(Example) “Crash! Bang! Lydia fell to the hard and unforgiving vinyl floor. The class on the floor below her ignored the noise and never gave a thought to what had happened.” This is an 800 word fictional story of an 8 year old who has the guts to hang in there when all else, including her classmates has deserted her.“ Then continue the cover letter. Keep it as short as possible.
The cover letter needs to have a beginning that pulls the editor in. It needs to tell the editor about the story; beginning, middle and end, in a brief one page letter. It can be about two or three paragraphs and only one page. If you are sending it snail mail, you need to send a self addressed stamped envelope so they can respond to you. (Mention at the end of the cover letter that it is enclosed.)
If the submission is sent by e-mail you can leave the stamped envelope out. At the end of your cover letter always thank the editor or publisher for taking the time to view your work. Let them know if it is a simultaneous submission. Some publishers will not accept simultaneous submissions, so read their guidelines.
For a sample of a cover letter, outlines, synopsis, proposals, Bibliography, or resume’ in proper submission form, you can go to this site www.WritersBookstore.com or call 1-800-443-6078, and order either “Book markets for Children’s Writers” Or “Magazine Markets for Children’s Writers 2013”, or you can order both. It is important to have these books when submitting, because otherwise you are just aimlessly submitting manuscripts to anyone. A waste of time and money for stamps if you don’t know whether the publication is exactly for what you have written, and editors don’t like viewing what they don’t publish. It is a waste of their precious time.
It’s also important to have the editor or publisher’s name. They are not happy with those who haven’t researched their publication before submitting to them and taking up their valuable time. These books provide all that you need to help you submit properly, and they are not expensive. They are a very good investment each year for writers.
It’s always wise to go to the guidelines of a publisher’s website, and find out what they want. Doing what the guidelines instruct is a big part of the battle to get published. You can also send a request by snail mail for their guidelines to be sent to you. Remember to send a self addressed stamped envelope so they can return to you their hard copy of guidelines. You can also do this to request a sample of their publications. (There will be a fee, and you must send a large envelope with enough postage for them to send it back to you) Researching a publication will better equip you for writing for it. If you send what they don’t want, they are annoyed and you have wasted their time and yours.
You will need these proper forms in order to submit your work: Bibliography; cover letter; submission manuscript written on a proper form; Copy of your bio. On my submissions I usually put a clause in at the end: “After two or three months (whichever you prefer) please consider this a simultaneous submission”. That way you will not have to wait months on end to submit to another publisher before you hear from the first one. If you do hear from a publisher while other submissions are outstanding, then you must contact all publishers you have submitted to, out of courtesy to them, and let them know you have been accepted elsewhere. Some publishers do not want any kind of simultaneous submission, and some do accept them, so again read their guidelines.
When writing your bio, you need to pack your credentials in a compact paragraph. Speak of yourself as if you were someone else. Tell what you write, where you belong or subscribe. Where you studied and what you love. Don’t be long winded; no one cares to read a long scenario of your life’s activities. Just stick to the professional basics. My bio and some publications are posted below as an example. Yours will be different but with the same principles.
Susan Hornbach writes creative nonfiction, fiction, poems, and stories of various types. She is a graduate of The Institute of Children’s Literature (Writing for Children and Teenagers), and has now completed her training with Jack Canfield, (Author, promotional Success Speaker), and Steve Harrison, (Marketing Expert), in their wonderful success provoking program, Best Seller Blueprint. Susan is a member of the Muse Online Conference Board, The Guardian Angel Biz Board, The Pub-Subbers Group, and she also subscribes to a number of writing related news letters. She writes a blog pertaining to kids, teachers, parents, writers, and all things in those areas for writing. Ms. Hornbach finds the fun of research, and the challenge of putting it all together in an exciting informational package, to always be her passion.
Quote: Stories are an author’s canvas, for which they create paintings, brush stroked with words.
Website: www.susanhornbach.com
The Write Voice Continues to Speak: http://bagfullofbooks4kids.blogspot.com
Recent Publications:
Book: Beetle Bombs, was recently accepted, By Guardian Angel Publishing, May 2012
Book: Heckle Freckle and Clyde, was recently accepted, By Guardian Angel Publishing, May 2012
Book: Spencer Goes to School, was recently accepted, By Guardian Angel Publishing, April 2012
http://www.guardianAngelPublishing.com
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Denise: Thank you, Susan, for joining us today, and sharing your tidbits for success.
Susan: It was my pleasure, Denise. I hope everyone has gained a little helpful insight to submitting their manuscripts. Happy writing to all.