After you have the various parts of the proposal and sample ready, prepare a list of publishers to whom to submit your proposal. Throughout the process of creating a book proposal, hopefully you have been focused on the market and a possible list of publishers for your book. Often when I go through this process, I will make a list of different publishers and even rank them as my first choice, second choice, etc. At this point in the process, you want to write your specific list of different publishers. Take a sheet of paper or open a file in your word processor and keep track of the title of the proposal, the names of the publisher and the date you sent it.
If you mail a physical submission, some authors include a self-addressed postcard with their submission on which the editor or editorial assistant can check a box and return it to you. Put the publisher’s name in the return address section, and then on the reverse side of the postcard write the following:
Dear______ (write your own name in this blank):
I received your proposal entitled: ______________ (name of your proposal).
___________________
Editor
This postcard will provide you with the reassurance that your proposal arrived safely and is entered into the publisher’s system for processing unsolicited manuscripts. It eliminates any need to call or email the editor. There is no need to overnight your proposal or send it through a carrier like FedEx which wastes your money and may cause more negative attention than positive.
Okay. Now your proposal is in that consideration pile. How long do you wait until you contact the editor to check on it? Each situation is different. I’ve already explained the busy life of an editor with their travel to conferences, frequent meetings and many other responsibilities, so one of the keys for you to answer this question is: How well do you know this particular editor? Do you know him or her personally? If so, how personally?
Take a minute and make an honest evaluation of your relationship. Did you meet the editor once or twice at a writers’ conference? The level of your relationship will depend on how soon to contact this editor. If you have never met them in person and only corresponded through email or on the phone, then you need to have patience and wait.
I try to be cordial and friendly to everyone, but sometimes writers assume that because I try to promptly answer someone’s email or return their phone call, they assume that I’m eager to have an ongoing relationship with them. It’s not necessarily true. The key is to look at your relationship honestly; then you will know you should wait rather than annoy the editor.
Agents are your allies at this point in the submission process. As an editor, I regularly receive submissions and talk with various agents who are often former book editors and understand the pressures of an editor much better than the author client. In general, the agent knows when an appropriate amount of time has passed to inquire about a particular manuscript. And they also know when to wait. For example, last week an agent called me to see how things were going (his first reason for calling), then he got around to his real reason for calling (to see if I received a novel, he sent me as fiction acquisitions editor). Yes, I received it but I hadn’t read it. This gave him another chance for a verbal pitch about how great this novel will be when I read it. Because of my long-term relationship with this particular agent, he had the “right” to call me and inquire about it.
As an author, you have to recall the old adage, “The squeaky wheel gets greased.” Here’s the problem: If you never inquire or follow-up on your proposal, you could wait a long time to receive an answer from an editor. Some of my writer friends mention that a particular publisher has had their book proposal for over a year. Whenever I hear that a proposal has been at a publisher for that length of time, there is a high probability the publisher has (a) lost the proposal and will never return it, or (b) will reject the proposal entirely.
My experience in publishing says the longer a proposal is in circulation, often the less likely the book will be acquired from a traditional publisher. A book proposal from a published author with a timely topic is generally purchased in a matter of a few months, rather than many months. The other proposals are held for thorough reading and consideration but even then most of them will be rejected.
Last year, I received an unsolicited call from an author who had published books, but it was a new relationship to me. She explained that she had some devotional books that had gone out of print and wanted to send them for consideration. Our publishing list did include devotional books, but we rarely added new titles and they were not on our list of hotly desired topics. While I knew this background when she called, the path of least resistance (or the shortest phone call and interruption) was to encourage her to send me the material.
Besides the lack of acquisitions priority for devotional books, I didn’t tell this author that sometimes it’s harder to get a book reprinted after it’s gone out of print than to get it published the first time. Many books go out of print each year because of poor sales, and you would be surprised at the number of authors who attempt to try and place them with a different publishing house. If I had explained all these details behind the difficulty of republishing her book, it would have simply lengthened the phone conversation and taken time away from other things I needed to accomplish. I encouraged her to send the material to my attention.
In a few days, her package with the out-of-print books arrived on my desk. I wasn’t eager to read the material nor was I quick to return it in light of more pressing priorities. The material was stuck in a pile on my desk. A few weeks later, she called to check on the material and I still had not read it. A few weeks later, I got a third call from this author and immediately I dug out the material and tucked it in an envelope to return it. She pressed for an answer and got the one she didn’t want to hear—“No.” In the press of returning hundreds of manuscripts, I did not take the time to scribble a note of reason on my rejection letter which I sent her for several reasons— including the annoying repeat phone calls.
I encourage you to keep track of your submissions and follow-up but do so gently and appropriately. If you push the editor, you will get the answer of least resistance and the one you don’t want to hear.
W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. Get a free copy of his proposal book (follow the link). Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook, his blog and LinkedIn.