My apologies for leaving my account unable to accept PMs (and, wow, there’s a lot of other options I discovered on my control panel page, as well!) and not watching this thread in the meantime.
It also looks like the reply I posted here earlier didn’t get captured on the board (that part wasn’t my fault) so I’ll post it again.
The publishing industry has grown to be multi-layered and rather complex, largely in the name of specializing roles in an effort to produce the best products for the market.[4]
Back when I was in a college Creative Writing course, one of our required “textbooks” was a current copy of Writers Market[1]. I encourage you to get a copy – or I think I saw an on-line subscription version a couple years back and that might be a more up-to-date resource. Basically, it’s a list of all the publishing companies, their genre, specialties, imprints, contact information (but see the next paragraph) submission rules, payment terms, etc. The print version had the listings organized by genre in one section, same listings organized alphabetically in another section, same listing organized by imprint in another section… So basically the on-line version is easier to deal with because the sorting is handled via database controls and your search is much easier and you don’t have to waste all that paper on the redundant reorganizations.
Note, however, that some publishing houses don’t accept unsolicited materials. Instead, they deal only with agents, who perform the task of sorting through the zillions of unsolicited offerings (slush) that would otherwise be one of the jobs of an editor’s assistant[2] and then they act as the intermediary between the writer/author and the publishing house’s editor. An agent, of course, will take his percentage of the profit from a published book – profit being the tiny bit left after the editor, reviewer(s), copy-editor(s), illustrator(s), marketer(s), printer, distributor, possibly the warehouse worker(s) and the shipper all get paid to do what they do for the writer’s content.[4] Therefore, agents are listed in Writers’ Market as well.
And then there’s even some agents who won’t accept unsolicited materials either. They’re working with their own stable of authors[3] and don’t have time to deal with slush piles either. Instead, they subscribe to the magazines in the genre (plural) that they specialize in (Asimov, Spyglass, Dragon, whatever) and watch for authors whose articles show promising style as well as meeting whatever grammar and mechanical writing standards they require. So there are also magazines listed in Writers’ Market, as well.
Thus, if you haven’t done so already, it behooves you to get some shorter representatives of your style and mind published in magazines related to your content. Doing so shows you can adjust your content to meet specifications without losing your message. Doing so repeatedly not only builds your vitae but also shows you’re not just a one-shot wonder – and starts getting you noticed by agents (see above).
–G!
[1] There are also variants called Poet’s Market and Songwriter’s Market. They use similar formats and are probably compiled by the same company.
[2] Anecdote: When I worked at Harcourt, I was an assistant to the Editor’s Assistant, primarily working on a specialized side-project. I happened to scoop up an unsolicited abstract from the fax machine. Since we officially didn’t accept slush, the Editor’s Assistant probably would have thrown that fax away without even reading it. Even if she had read it, she didn’t have my background in sociology (particularly social movements and change) so she would not have recognized the abstract as related to the Encyclopedia of Ethics that we were already compiling. I convinced the editor to turn that unsolicited abstract (slush) into The Encyclopedia of Nationalism which ran as a companion-piece released with the Encyclopedia of Ethics. They both got awards in our industry. [The EA got credit for this, not me.] My point is that slush piles aren’t always crap and it’s still debatable whether they’re good or bad for the industry.
[3] My Creative Writing instructor noted this on the first day of class: There’s a lot of people who write. A lot of writers even have their writing printed and distributed. An *Author *doesn’t just write as a primary vocation; doesn’t just make money from the effort. An *Author *produces works that sell to the public, for a profit, repeatedly. Better authors sell multiple distinct works that sell to the public, for a profit, repeatedly. Writers write; Authors get published – and paid.
Disclosure/Warning: I am a very biased (former) industry insider.
[4] There’s an alternative model currently known as self-publishing. Back when I was still part of the industry, we called it Vanity Press. It cuts out a lot of people who stand between the writer and the reader, in some cases leaving just the writer and the printing company and maybe the press operator and bookbinder (if the printing company owner isn’t doing those jobs himself) and gives a lot of writers the chance to [del]stroke their vanity[/del] honestly say they’ve published something. Amazon and self-publishing companies tout this as a better model because ‘there’s just too many hoops to jump through and arbitrarily-raised fences to leap over’ that it means the average writer can’t possibly get his foot in the door. And, with the bigger publishers buying up the smaller publishers there are fewer and fewer places for the average writer to submit his work.’ I, on the other hand, recognize that an editor is staking his career on a writer’s ability to write and satisfy an audience (or various agents’ abilities to find and represent such writers, in which case the agent is staking his career on the writer’s abilities). I also recognize that the better printing companies work with particular publishers because they know that the editors in those publishing houses have good reputations for signing up high-quality content-makers. Publications that come out of publishing companies are also handled by copy-editors, marketers, distributors, and book dealers – all of whom need to make a profit so their employees can focus exclusively on their role while being able to eat. So while the Amazon and Vanity Press models will let the writer keep a larger percentage of the sale price of a book, that writer typically loses the benefit of expert copy-editors, reviewers, marketers, shippers, and book dealers. Lacking specialists to do those things for her, the vanity writer must assume those roles. Copy-editing is mostly easy with computers being able to spell-check everything. It’s tougher when writing fiction or highly technical documents that contain words that the average spell-checker can’t handle. Reviewing can’t be done for one-self and friends and family tend to filter negative criticism in favor of maintaining relationships. Marketing is a craft and skill best left to experts, as is properly shipping dozens of books at the best prices. More importantly, if a writer must act as her own marketer (and shipper) she’s spending time and energy learning to market and ship while not spending time doing what she should: writing. A publishing company usually has on-going relationships with artists as well, freeing the writer from having to find, solicit, review, and choose an illustrator (if pictures are going to be a part of the book). So my tendency is to encourage publishing houses to pay editors to make decisions (and stake their careers) on the publish-ability of content. Those who can make the cut get the benefit of all the specialists the publishing company needs to assign; those who can’t make the cut should continue honing their skills and craft until they can make the cut.