Four Dos and Four Don’ts of Submitting to Wolsak and Wynn
It’s February and that means that we are about halfway through our annual submission period. But don’t worry! You still have until the end of March to send us your query letters and samples. It’s time to put the finishing touches on your manuscript, type up that letter and stick those stamps on a self-addressed envelope.
As the person who reads and records every submission that comes through our office, I have seen it all! Now, I’m here to provide you with some tips on what we like to see in a submission, so check out the list of four dos and four don’ts of submitting to Wolsak and Wynn below.
DO Include your contact information
Too many times, we’ve been unable to contact someone about the status of their submission because they didn’t include a way to get in touch with them. It’s an easy detail to overlook, but it’s a very important one. One of the best ways to make sure you haven’t missed this crucial detail is to include a self-addressed stamped envelope.
DO Include a query letter
A query letter not only helps us get to know who you are, but is the perfect place to summarize what kind of book you’ve submitted. We receive hundreds of submissions each period and we need to know quickly what kind of submission you have sent us so that we know which editor to send it on to. A well-written query letter is the perfect way to help your work stick out in our minds and help it get to the right place.
DO Include a SASE
A self-addressed stamped envelope is our preferred way to contact you about your submission. If you don’t need your sample back, a small letter-sized envelope is all you need and we’ll recycle your pages when we’ve responded to you. But if you do want your sample back, a SASE the same size as you used to send in your submission is needed. Plus it’s just nice to get mail sometimes.
DO Familiarize yourself with what we do
A lot of writers will send their manuscripts to any and all publishing houses, receive rejections from each one and become discouraged or frustrated. I’m here to tell you that just because a publisher rejects your manuscript, that doesn’t mean your work isn’t good or valuable. Check out Noelle’s blog post about Understanding the List where she explains that each publisher curates a list of books and authors that complement each other and best represent the house’s style and mandate. Your werewolf-detective novel might be an exciting, fast-paced thriller, but if it doesn’t quite fit with our list of published books, we will have to pass. Find the publisher that puts out the stories you love to read. Chances are they will like what you have to write as well.
DON’T Submit books printed through self-publishing services
At least once a submission period, I will open an envelope to find a bound book inside. Please know that we consider these to be published books; they are already making their rounds in the world. We understand the excitement of seeing your name on the cover of a book and if you want to print your book yourself, far be it from us to stop you, but please know that we are then unable to publish the same work.
DON’T Get carried away
You may have been dreaming about getting this book published for a long time and you’ve come up with a hundred different ideas about how you want it to look from the font to the cover design. But part of our job is to take care of all that stuff for you! We work with professional designers and graphic artists to create books that are beautiful and high quality. You may also want to protect your submission with a piece of cardboard to keep it flat and a thick bubble mailer, but those things only make it more expensive for you to send the package to us and more difficult for us to open. Trust me, a bent corner and Times New Roman font will not hurt your chances. Keep it simple and let your writing speak for itself.
DON’T Submit a handwritten manuscript
We get that sometimes technology is frustrating. You should see us when our internet router starts acting up. But whether any of us like it or not, most of the work in publishing is now done on computers. A handwritten manuscript would need to be typed out in order to edit, proofread, design and market it anyway. Save yourself – and us – a step by starting from a typed document.
DON’T Try to pay us to publish your book
Wolsak and Wynn is a traditional publisher. That means you bring us a manuscript and if we like it, we pay you for the rights to publish it. That’s right: we pay you. It can be hard to understand how a traditional publisher works when a Google search for “book publisher” returns four ads for self-publishing services before even mentioning a traditional one. With self-publishing services becoming more widely available, we want to stress that when dealing with a traditional publisher, you will never have to pay to have your book published.
BONUS TIP: DO Keep writing
The process of getting a book published can be long and unforgiving and you may feel at times that it’s better to walk away from writing altogether rather than to continue being told no. KEEP WRITING! Every story deserves to be shared and every writer deserves to keep writing. Maybe your manuscript wasn’t right for this publisher at this time, but that doesn’t mean it never will be! Or maybe you’ll find traditional publishing isn’t for you and you want to share your work other ways and that’s okay, too! What’s important is that if you love writing, you keep doing it.
So that’s it! Four Dos and Four Don’ts to submitting to Wolsak and Wynn. For full submission guidelines, please see our submissions page. Good luck to everyone who submits! We look forward to seeing your books and wish you happy writing!
