Guidelines or Guardrails: Why Playing by the Rules is More Important Than Ever

I have been spanked more often in the last two months for not following publisher’s guidelines than I have in the last two years combined! And I’m actually pretty careful about such things.

But I’m convinced that a few years ago, when margins weren’t so tight and editors were freer to be more creative with their purchasing power, guidelines were just that; “guidelines” they hoped you’d follow rather than insisted you follow.

Now, they’re not playing!

I’ve had no less than 6 publishers write me recently telling me that unless I re-submitted my query and followed the submission guidelines carefully that my query would be discarded.

Typically when I go back and actually read the guidelines I notice that they’re not difficult to follow, just very, very specific.

Again, I’m not consciously trying to break the rules, but oftentimes when I have a new client whose book is right for a certain publisher, or even a literary agent, I’ll just go into my database, grab the editor’s email and approach them directly.

So it’s not that I’m disregarding the guidelines so much as cutting out the middleman. Now I know better. Read the publisher’s submission guidelines; bookmark the guidelines; study the guidelines.

They’re there for a reason, and oftentimes it’s to weed out busy shmucks like me who haven’t visited the publisher’s website in over a year!

Seriously, though, guidelines exist because publishers are busier than ever, are being more selective than ever and although they DO want to read, find and discover new talent, they want to do so on their terms. (And these days, who can blame them?)

What I’m seeing a lot of lately is publishers asking you to send a representative writing sample of the piece – maybe the first 15 to 20 pages – pasted inside the email directly below the query. This cuts out the step of liking your query and then asking to see the pages in a separate email, which they may or may not like.

This way, in one step, they can read the query and, if they like what you’re pitching, read your actual writing in the very same email.

They also seem to be looking for contact information, the genre the book falls into and how many words it has, or is expected to have; these are not difficult guidelines to follow, although it can get frustrating to see different guidelines for almost every publisher.

Follow them anyway. There’s no sense starting off the relationship with a potential publisher on the wrong foot, right?

Yours in publishing,

Rusty