The Selection Process. 23rd August 2010.

I’ve talked a lot over the last few weeks about the silly submissions and the ridiculous stunts pulled by would be authors when it comes to submissions. I think it’s time to talk about the others – the contenders – the submissions that actually have a chance of making the grade.

Yesterday was my submission day, and no, I’m not talking about kinky sexual practices, I’m talking about the day when having culled the silly and downright stupid submissions out of the way, and cleared my desk of other issues, I can sit down and go through the contenders list.
Sometimes the list is only 4 or 5 long, sometimes it’s a lot more – yesterday it was 17.

Some were novel length and some were considerably shorter, and one was a very long novel (150,000 plus words which gives us a potential case of indigestion).

Before I go any further, I should add, this only the first real hurdle the contenders have to clear, my business partner will also look at them – a submitted manuscript will only be offered a contract if we both say yes to it. I just happen to be the one who does it first. Usually if I say a very Charles de Gaulle NON then she'll probably not even do more than glance at them. So you can tell I give a graded response, definite no, no, possible if rewritten, probable with changes, maybe, yes and definite yes.

So of the seventeen, three were disposed of quickly – one the file was corrupt and wouldn’t open (I’ve e-mailed for a replacement from the author – I’m not that harsh), and two had already been glanced through and it was simply a confirmation of the earlier thoughts – definite no’s. Another was a religious diatribe wrapped up as a novella which is a big no-no. The next one to hit the skids was a literary work, it might be worthy and extremely well written but its market would be confined to a few of the so called intelligentsia who in any case would turn up their noses at an e-book anyway. It has to be printed on vellum for people like that.

So there’s another rule for you, is it commercial?

The next two (and I’m working up the scale, not the actual reading sequence here) were rejections on plot issues. Okay, you need certain things to happen in a certain way for your final chapter to work. I can understand that, but the framework that allows that needs to have some internal logic that allows “suspension of disbelief”. There are myriad ways of doing this but if you don’t and still plough on, don’t complain when it’s rejected because the editor can see bus sized plot holes in it.

There’s another one for you – does your plot work – does it hold water?

Now we’ve eliminated the pure dross or the unworkable, we’re down to the faintly possible. With many publishers you won’t be able to tell whereabouts in the cull you fell, because all you get back is a rejection slip. We try to be a little nicer than that, and tell you why. The faintly possible are those where there is something inherently right about the manuscript, but one or more things seriously wrong too. This might be, under-characterisation (the story grabs you but the characters don’t, or even written in the wrong point of view or any one of several technical faults in the writing). The book may be too long or even too short. There are potentially a myriad reasons here.

These now fall by the wayside with a recommendation that they go back to the author for a rewrite or correction.

Now we’re getting to the good ones. Some of these get a straight forward yes vote from me; some get a qualified yes vote. Again, these may be the same faults as the previous set, but not as severe. The recommendation here is for an offer to go to the author on the basis; provided you agree to this we would be happy to contract it.

I finished them all off yesterday and sent my recommendations to my business partner. It’s her turn now.

She starts in the opposite direction, starting with the yeses and if she agrees issues a contract offer, if she doesn’t the conversation between us begins – although that is usually only at the top end, the difference between a definite and a qualified yes.

You want to know the score?

I said yes to 4 out of the 17. We’ll see.....