I wrote an article for December’s The Victorian Writer on how to get your
manuscript off the slush pile. There’s only so much you can say in 700 words so
I thought I’d delve a little deeper into this topic here, but I also thought I'd focus a little more on children’s and YA.
Working the slush pile for a children’s and
YA publisher is one of my day jobs so I read hundreds and hundreds of
submissions and after a while it gets a bit frustrating to see the same issues
pop up again and again. The thing is, I’m sure many writers don’t know about
these errors and without knowing it, how can they improve the chances of their submission being one of the very few manuscripts that are plucked from the slush pile for publication? So while all the
general advice from my The Victorian Writer
article still stands (especially the bit about making sure your synopsis covers
the key plots points and gives away the
ending – that’s very important!), here are some more specific suggestions
for all you children’s and YA writers out there:
Keep your author bio relevant and think
hard about your point of difference. In children’s publishing, how often do you
think people use the ‘I’m a mother’ or ‘I’m a father’ line to explain why they’re
the right person for writing a children’s book? The answer is, without
exaggeration, every single person. Being a parent does not necessarily make you
a good children’s writer (it doesn’t make you a bad one either of course).
There are plenty of highly successful children’s writers who were not parents
and plenty more who couldn’t even stand children (I’m looking at you Roald
Dahl!). The point is, being a parent does not make you unique or help you to
stand out in the slush pile.
Quite a lot of submissions for children’s
and YA come in from school teachers too. Again, being a school teacher doesn’t
necessarily make you a good writer – you might understand what children enjoy
but there’s a difference between understanding good writing and being able to
create it. Think about what you’ve done as a teacher that makes you a good children’s
writer. Be as specific as possible.
When you’re asked to identify comparison
titles, avoid saying 'there are no books like mine'. This happens a lot. I once read a submission with
exactly this line but the problem was the author had written a paranormal
romance about vampires. Your work is not an island and it is, almost probably
(read: definitely) not wholly unique. All books share something in common with other books – themes, character types,
subject matter, tone, style, setting, etc. Acknowledging this is not a bad
thing. In fact, it’s a really good thing.
When you say there is nothing like your
work, you make yourself look a bit silly (or ignorant. Or worse, a
liar). Remember, the person reading your work is employed in publishing. They
love books and they read A LOT. If they work in a specialised area like
children’s then they will have read widely in this area. They will know there
are books with a similar storyline, similar theme, or a similar style to your work.
When a publisher asks you to identify
comparison titles, it’s not a trap to get you to admit that your book isn’t
entirely unique. They want to know where you see your work sitting. They want
to know that you understand the market and your readers. They want to know that
you understand your own writing by being able to place it alongside similar
titles. They want to know that there are other successful books similar to
yours and that there is a strong, viable market for your book. You do
yourself a disservice when you don’t answer this question in your
submission.
Also, do not draw attention to the fact
that the form or genre is new to you and that you ‘have no idea
what other books are out there for YA/Children’ (I’ve read this more than you’d expect). You
may literally have no idea what other YA/Children's books are like but do something about it. Go to a bookstore
and browse the shelves. Talk to kids you know or teachers you know or corner a
children’s librarian (they're wonderful people). Do research. You may
discover that there are hundreds of titles out there far too similar to yours
(the story of a high school girl who meets and falls in love with a vampire has
been written so maybe shelve that project for a while) or that your work is
similar enough to a few other titles but unique enough to be highly saleable. I
would also like to add that writing a book in a genre and for an audience you
know nothing about is rarely a good idea and almost definitely shows in your
writing. Know your audience and know your genre.
Make sure you have a really clear
understanding of the needs of the age group you are writing for. Partly, this
means being aware of the form (have a close look at the picture books you might
own and see how they’re structured – a picture book is pretty different to a
short story or a chapter book – you can’t just write a short story and then
call it a picture book). It also means choosing language and sentence
structures that are right for the reader’s ability (avoid using complex
sentence structures in picture books for example). I also feel that some ideas
lend themselves to certain age groups so make sure you read widely in the genre
to get a feel for this. Have a clear idea of expected word counts for age
groups (a picture book should be no more than 1000 words for example).
Good luck!
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