Submission Guidelines or, How to Do Everything You Can to Turn a ‘No’ Into a ‘Yes’

Background – Submission Guidelines

Every single publisher has them. And every single agent does as well. What are they? Submission guidelines.

Ignore them at your peril.

But let’s back up for a second.

Beforehand

Before you even get to the guidelines, it will behoove you to do some research on the publisher or agent you are courting.

Just like Elton John sang, you can’t find “gold in a silver mine.” (see about one minute into the video)

What I mean is, sending your zombie romance to a publisher which never takes zombie stories is an exercise in futility.

So, start with research. Find the receptive agents and publishers who would accept your book.

And, find out who is taking on new clients. Everything else may be perfect, but if your chosen agent or publisher is taking a break, do not query them until they are ready to start accepting new submissions!

Find Those Guidelines!

Okay, you have found a likely publisher or agent. And you know that they are open to submissions, because their X or Bluesky or Facebook feed said so. Okay, that’s great. Now, where are those pesky guidelines?

Often, these are prominent pages on any publishing or agent website. Guidelines are important to your chosen recipient. So, they are going to make them relatively easy to find. But if you can’t find them, ask! Bluesky, X, or Facebook are often the best places for you to ask.

And while it’s less common, you may even find this information on an About page or the like.

What is in Standard Submission Guidelines?

Nearly always, you will see guidance on things such as:

• Fonts and spacing
† Format
• Date(s) for submissions, if applicable
† Who to address a submission to
• How to add a submission to your query

Let’s take these one at a time.

Fonts and Spacing

Many places will ask that you only submit pieces in Times New Roman. Also, often the size is twelve point, and the spacing is double. But why is this?

Times New Roman is a standard font and virtually every computer has it. Also, virtually every computer and publisher can read it. TNR is also a serif font, and those tend to be easier to read. The twelve point standard is also meant to make a piece easier to read.

So is double spacing. But double spacing has another purpose.

Double spacing is good if the agent or publisher prints any (or even all) of the pages of the manuscript. Because for people who edit by hand, double spacing just plain gives them more room to work with.

Format

Formatting generally refers to stuff like whether a recipient wants your MS to come in Word format, PDF, Google doc, or something else.

If you don’t have Adobe, don’t worry! Just run a search for free tools to convert Word (or whichever format your MS is in) to PDF. And for Word to PDF, you can use Adobe Acrobat.

Submission Guidelines: Dates

Some publishers and zines have rolling submissions. Others have specific submission periods. And others might have both, where you can submit any time for their regular stuff but are on a tight deadline for something special.

Consider how you need to be reminded of various deadlines and schedules in your life. Do you need a number of calendar reminders? Or is one sufficient? Either way, set up a reminder for the submission deadline the same way.

Bonus! Shave a few days off the submission deadline and set your reminder for that date instead. You’re a lot more likely to get something in by the 15th if you tell yourself it’s due on the tenth.

Oh, and don’t ask for extensions unless you’ve been working with a publisher a lot. They have crafted their schedules to best optimize their time and resources. Maybe they’ve paid for ads. If you’re going to be late, that throws a monkey wrench into everything.

And the publisher will simply pick someone else who won’t mess up their schedule.

Who to Address the Submission to

Unless you have a contact on the inside and they’ve said you can do this, only send your MS to the correct person. Adding the CEO to your submission distribution list isn’t going to endear you to anyone.

That is, unless the CEO is a close family relation or has specifically said you can do this. Otherwise, just leave the CEO alone.

How to Add a Submission to Your Query

What do I mean by this, when it comes to submission guidelines?

Is there submission software you must use? Or will they take your MS as an attachment to an email? Or do they want you to upload it somewhere (a Google folder is usually great for this) and just give them the link?

Keep in mind that you will need to check sharing settings if you have to upload anything.

Bonus: Saving Styles in Word

Wait, what?

Before you take on the wonderful world of submission guidelines, and hopefully even before you start writing, you should create styles in Word. That is, if you’re using that software. It’s also useful to create a template and then just reuse it.

Knowing that publishers often want TNR in twelve point type means you can just make a style that fills these parameters.

Now, recognize that these instructions are for Word version 2411, which is part of my current Microsoft 365 subscription. But Microsoft doesn’t change this methodology too often.

How to Save a Style

1. Start typing.
2. Format your prose any way you like. Don’t forget extras like font size, margins, and indentation.
2a. If you must have the first sentence of a chapter look different (such as if you add a drop cap or don’t indent), then make a separate style just for the first line.
3. In the Home menu, choose Styles.
4. In the bottom left, click on ‘Create a Style’.
4a. Name it something logical, rather than Style5. You want to name it something more like XYZ Publisher Submission Guidelines.
5. Click ‘Modify’.
6. Check and update any specifics you may have missed in step #2 or #2a.
7. Save that bad boy!

Now, you can use your new style to make your submissions beautiful and perfect. And, if a publisher has a different variation, you can always change the style, or create a new one from the old.

In addition, if a publisher changes their mind after you’ve written your MS, you can still fix it easily.

After all, updating the style means Word will update it wherever you used it.

Pretty neat trick, eh?

Why Do All This?

Some of this may feel like jumping through just so many hoops. And perhaps a bit of it is. But if you ignore these hoops, you’ll be giving a publisher or agent a reason to say no.

Don’t do that. If you’ve got 20 ways for them to simply say no, do your level best to eliminate all 20 of them. Smooth out every bump in the road you see. Following an agent or publisher’s submission guidelines is key to achieving your main objective.

Which is to get your prose out there, not turn your work into some odd exception that an agent or publisher has to try to convince themselves to take a chance on.

Takeaways for Submission Guidelines

Submission guidelines exist for a reason. Often, this is to make publishers’ lives easier. Ignore them at your peril.

Because if you don’t follow them, it’s like pulling defeat from the jaws of victory. For a publisher will simply choose to work with someone who will.

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