52 UK PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

As you'll see over in the sidebar I've posted links to 52 UK publishers who will consider submissions from writers.

I have not included academic publishers, textbook publishers and publishers whose lists are exclusively based on hobbies, collecting and leisure interests and local history.


The links will take you to the appropriate submissions pages. If you come across any broken links then do please let me know.

Not all the publishers listed, Two Ravens Press and Tonto Books, for example, are looking at submissions at the current time - so do check the submission guidelines before wasting your time, and your targetted publisher's time.

There are some highly regarded and respected imprints among the list: Canongate, Headline, Myrmidon, Macmillan New Writing, Quartet and Snowbooks for example.

Please, do not even begin to form the impression that because these publishers are still open to approaches from writers they collectively represent a soft-touch route into print, that their editorial standards are not as exacting as the corporate publishers. It could be said that their standards are higher. Look at Jamie Byng's imprint Canongate for example, note some of the writers: Barack Obama, Philip Pullman, Yann Martel -- hardly newbie scribblers who couldn't place their work elsewhere.

Most of the companies listed are steered by strong, singular personalities whose aim is to put strong individual voices in reach of discerning, individually minded readers.

A point reinforced by Mark Hodkinson at Pomona Books (not currently accepting submissions) who says, "I think the best publishing houses are built on the taste of one or two people and to hell with committees or marketing strategies. If I love a book and believe in it, we'll publish it."

Similarly, Emma Barnes, Managing Director at Snowbooks, asks herself of every book they consider, "Do we love it enough to invest around £10,000 of our own money and eight months of our working life in it?"

ANOTHER 10 plus U.S. PUBLISHERS WHO WILL ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

SEE UPDATE: APRIL 30th, 2011

Here's a list of more U.S. publishers who will look at your work:

• Absey & Co.

• Baen - only Science Fiction & Fantasy. But if you write SF you'd know that already.
  

• Coffee House Press

• Dalkey Archive Press

• Glass House Press - espionage, mystery, and psychological/paranormal thriller genres.

• Kirk House - be a bit careful here.

• MacAdam/Cage - though be mindful they have submission windows.

• Brown Ink Books - keep in mind that their next submission period is Fall 2009.

• Small Anchor Press - love these guys, you will too. I've decided I want a book crafted, printed and published by them.

And, to finish up, you'll find the submission guidelines to another 5 imprints here.

Don't forget, before you set to with packing up your brilliant MS read these guidelines first:

• The links posted here will take you straight to the appropriate page on the publisher's website detailing their submissions policy and instructions.
  

PLEASE read these carefully and do as asked.

• While on any site browse around a bit and familiarise yourself with the publisher's list, seek out their blog (if they have one) and gather clues on their current acquisitions policy.

• If the publisher has a newsletter, and seem as though they could be a possible home for your work at some point in the future, then sign up.

PLEASE, don't just smash, grab and send; give careful thought to your query and show consideration.

You know the drill - but if you don't, don't send, otherwise a few more doors may close.

SNOWBOOKS

In an earlier post about U.K. publishers who will accept submissions from writers I listed Snowbooks. Here's a link to Snowbooks' submission guidelines.

I check into Snowbooks' blog most weekdays, as I have for the past two years or more.


It's a chatty, friendly, open blog which doesn't fall prey to simply plugging their stable of writers.

I've explored lots of little diverting byways on the net I would never have discovered - steampunk sites, techie sites, and John Cusack's interview with Naomi Klein, for example - through following Rob Jones's and Emma Barnes's posts and links.

Emma Barnes comes across as a friendly, honest and open workaholic who spends a lot of time designing and refining business systems, always with the intention of increasing efficiency and selling more books more effectively.

Emma freely shares a lot of her knowledge with her peers in the publishing industry.
And, very commendably, has opened up access to Snowbooks' monthly sales figures for anyone who is interested and who applies for a password.

Rob Jones (aka as writer Robert Finn) is more the thinker-at-large, opining on topics as diverse as techie gadgetry, exploitation in the Third World, vegetarianism, Dr. Who, screenwriting and Joss Wheedon.

Snowbooks' efforts have been recognised with a clutch of industry awards.

Their stable of writers is a rich, diverse mix of contemporary fiction, non-fiction and a couple of volumes by luminaries such as Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster.

Yesterday I followed Emma's link to Strictly Writing where she posts an honest assessment of why Snowbooks rejects work , even work they believe to be 'outstanding'. Emma says, "If you have written a novel which is destined in the future to win the Booker, chances are that we at Snowbooks will reject you. We have an editorial policy driven primarily by our own entirely subjective tastes, combined with a forecast of what we think we can sell."

Emma also says, "We've turned down books in the past which fit our editorial plans perfectly but the author seemed to be the sort of person we'd rather not work with."

Interesting, invaluable stuff. Well worth checking out.

ANOTHER MACMILLAN NEW WRITING UPDATE

My original post about Macmillan New Writing stirred a lot of interest.

This led to another post picking up on comments Will Atkins, MNW's commissioning editor, left on a thread on the forum over at Authonomy, HarpernotCollins' online slushpile.


In the original post I referred you to Macmillan New Writers' blog.

Well, if you did check it out (Whaddya mean, 'I've got no time for that nonsense'?) and bookmarked it as you should have done, you'll have seen an interview with Will Atkins orchestrated and conducted by two of MNW's authors, David Isaak and Tim Stretton.

I have never read such a revealing insight into the thinking behind a contemporary imprint.

There's no flim-flam, no self-aggrandizing twaddle, just straight honest answers to plainly wrought questions.

Go there. Read it. Consider your options.

And, while you're making up your mind whether Macmillan New Writing is for you or not, go buy some of their writers' books. Read them. Enjoy them. Then reflect on the care that's gone into producing them.

LOKI PRESS - $500 FOR YOUR SENDING YOUR MS

Here's an imprint you may not have heard of before: Loki Press.
Launched just last week Loki Press has been financed by art collector Anatoly Ovspensky. Apparently Ovspensky, well-known here on the Med for his lavish parties and influential connections, sold a few works by El Lissitzky by private treaty to raise the necessary to float his new hobby horse.

New York imprints have no need to worry - most of Ovspensky's forays into fashion and culture have not exactly cut the mustard. His daughter's cutesy fashion house - Miloka Ma - is mired in protracted bailout negotiations, while his son Olly has had his fingers burned more than twice with dodgy health-fitness-resort schemes in Albania.

Ovspensky has appointed former East German health and fitness publisher Oskar Lunt as his C.E.O.

At the glitzy launch an ebullient Lunt said, "They tell me its all about the Long Tail - well, at Loki, we believe it's about the well-made, well-told tale."

The initial team includes former sports publishing supremo Alan Parsons; Rachelle Ingrams; Lydia Farnsworth; Olly Ovspensky as well as Lunt.

Given the new-found zeal for daring new business models Loki Press - if their P.R. kit is to be believed - have turned the whole pre-production supply-demand model on its head. Eschewing agents and packagers they are offering writers who submit MSs $500 each.

That's right - the first 50 writers who forward a complete and thoroughly polished MS will receive a no-strings $500.

The catch? Well, there isn't one as far as I can see.

Lunt insists this bait to catch and queue talent, and position themselves as the writer's best friend, has been fully costed into their ambitious launch and development plans.
"$25,000 in terms of an R&D budget is peanuts. We believe in talent and we know we can turn that $25,000 investment in talent into a ten, maybe twenty, fold return on investment. New York publishers have lost faith in talent, and most talent has lost faith with New York. Our $25,000 will float Loki on a huge swell of goodwill."

So, what happens after they've got their 50 scripts? "We'll close submissions while we work with the authors to develop their scripts and negotiate global rights sales," says Lunt.

So, what do they want? "Fiction only. No queries, no proposals, no cutesy resumés, just the complete polished MS."

Interested? Details here.

IRISH PUBLISHERS WHO WILL ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

SEE NEW POST.
Every writer must have an Irish writer among their favourites. Who's yours? Swift? Wilde? Joyce? Behan? Beckett? G.B. Shaw? W.B. Yeats? Flann O'Brien? Brian Friel? Or Heaney? Or maybe John B. Keane - author of The Field (published by Mercier Press featured in the list that follows)?

Or perhaps Cathal Ó Sándair, who wrote over 100 novels, including westerns and the Réics Carló Irish language detective series?

Or maybe, all you urban fantasy-vampire writers out there, it's Bram Stoker. Yes, that's right, Bram Stoker. Until undertaking a little research for this post I'd never known that Bram Stoker was Irish. Silly me.

Putting this list together was a very interesting exercise, almost a pleasure. The welcoming and helpful tone used in the submission guidelines you'll find here is markedly different to the tone used by U.K. and U.S. publishers (if they have any submission guidelines at all).

This list isn't definitive - I'll update as and when - and if you know of any Irish publishers who will accept submissions from writers then please pass them on via the comments box below this post. Thanks.

I repeat again the preamble to the U.K. list below. PLEASE READ IT:

The links I've posted here will take you straight to the appropriate page on the publisher's website detailing their submissions policy and instructions. PLEASE read these carefully and do as asked.

While on any site I strongly recommend you browse around a bit and familiarise yourself with the publisher's list, seek out their blog (if they have one) and gather clues on their current acquisitions policy.

If a publisher has a newsletter, and they seem as though they could be a possible home for your work at some point in the future, then sign up.

PLEASE, don't just smash, grab and send; give careful thought to your query and show consideration.

You know the drill - but if you don't, don't send, otherwise a few more doors may close.

FICTION

• Brandon Books

• Guildhall Press
  

• Lilliput Press
  

• Mercier Press
  

• New Island

• O'Brien - NO adult fiction, poetry and academic works. Children's fiction, children's non-fiction and adult non-fiction only.
  

• Penguin

NON-FICTION ONLY

• Blackhall Publishing

• Blackstaff Press - NO FICTION at present.

• Currach Press

• Gill Macmillan - and acdemic textbooks.

• Liberties Press

• The Liffey Press

• Woodfield Press - Biography, local history, women’s history/studies, social history.

• Maverick House - here's their blog.

POETRY

• Dedalus Press

• The Gallery Press
  

• Salmon Poetry
  

Best of luck - and if you do find a publisher from the above list please come back and share your experience. Thanks.

10 PLUS U.S. PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

SEE UPDATE: APRIL 30th, 2011

Last week in the post 10 U.K. publishers who accept submissions from writers
I promised to put up a list of ten U.S. publishers.

Well, here it is.

I repeat the preamble to the U.K. list below. PLEASE READ IT:

The links I've posted here will take you straight to the appropriate page on the publisher's website detailing their submissions policy and instructions. PLEASE read these carefully and do as asked.

While on any site I strongly recommend you browse around a bit and familiarise yourself with the publisher's list, seek out their blog (if they have one) and gather clues on their current acquisitions policy.

If a publisher has a newsletter, and they seem as though they could be a possible home for your work at some point in the future, then sign up.

PLEASE, don't just smash, grab and send; give careful thought to your query and show consideration.

You know the drill - but if you don't, don't send, otherwise a few more doors may close.

This collection is a mixed bag, PLEASE read the notes, not all the publishers listed are fiction publishers, (there are some interesting non-fiction imprints here) do not assume any of the publishers acquire the kind of fiction you produce.

Before getting your hopes up, run a check on those publishers you are not familiar with; perhaps run them through Writer Beware and/or Preditors & Editors.

OK, first up, five imprints from the US Macmillan stable: Tor, Forge, Orb, Sevens Seas and Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

• Newmarket Press, has a fiction list which includes the actor Gene Hackman's novel Wake of the Perdido Star, which I alluded to in this post.

• Sourcebooks has guidelines for general submissions and specific guidelines for romance here.

• Beaufort Books

• Gibbs Smith. Utah based outfit. (Would not be my first choice. I'd be a bit circumspect here and do some thorough research before getting too involved.)

• Sterling Publishing - a wholly owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble.

• Llewellyn Publications deals mainly with New Age, spritual growth type stuff but they do have a mystery fiction imprint - guidelines here.

• Melville House - PLEASE make it your duty to read their guidelines.

• Soho Press

• Soft Skull

OK, here's a sub-list of publishers that may interest writers of kids' stuff:

• Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin, writers for younger readers only.
• Boyds Mills Press - four imprints (including Rotterdam based Lemniscaat for the European market) for younger readers.
• Albert Whitman
  
• Charles Bridge
• Beacon Press, based in Boston, also has a childrens list, and will look at illustrated books.
  

As you'll likely know, despite efforts to revive the form, seriously published short-stories have just about died in the U.K. so it's always a pleasure to come across publishers who are still on the lookout for well-written collections of short-stories: Cantara Books is one such, and, interestingly, are positively interested in novellas. OV Books, an imprint of Dzanc Books, is another and will only look at collections of short-stories. Black Lawrence also look at short-story collections, translations from French and German, and poetry, as well as creative non-fiction, but take note of their submission windows.

Here's one just for CANADIANS.

Here's one for Black American writers - fiction, non-fiction and educational texts: Asabi Publishing.

And, to round off, two interesting non-fiction imprints:
Quirk who are looking for entertaining (not necessarily entertainment) non-fiction.
The New Press.

How many did I say? Not counting individual imprints there must be twenty two publishers here.
Best of luck with your queries. Let me know how you get on.

10 UK PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

The post about Macmillan New Writing generated a fair bit of interest so I've put together a list of ten UK based publishers who WILL accept submissions directly from writers.

The links posted here will take you straight through to the appropriate page on the publisher's website detailing their submissions policy and instructions. PLEASE read these carefully and do as asked.

While on any site I strongly recommend you browse around a bit and familiarise yourself with the publisher's list, seek out their blog and gather clues on their current acquisitions policy.

If a publisher has a newsletter, and they seem as though they could be a possible home for your work at some point in the future, then sign up.

PLEASE, don't just smash, grab and send; give careful thought to your query and show consideration.

You know the ropes - but if you don't, don't send, otherwise a few more doors may close.

• I've indicated which publishers are e-mail query friendly with a big YES.

• And I've indicated hard-copy submissions only with a big NO.

• And I've indicated publishers who have a blog link in the sidebar here with an asterisk.
  

I intend to post a list of ten U.S. publishers who accept submissions from writers next week.

1. Alma Books * - NO -
   
2. Canongate * - NO -
   
3. Carcanet - NO -
   
4. Constable & Robinson - NO -
   
5. Legend Press * - YES -
   
6. Myrmidon - NO -
7. Monday Books* - YES -
   
8. Robert Hale * - NO -
   
9. Snowbooks * - YES EXCLUSIVELY -
   
10. Two Ravens Press * - YES EXCLUSIVELY -

Best of luck.

WHAT DO EDITORS DO?

What editors do depends on who hires them to do what they do.

Regardless of the detail of what an editor does it is axiomatic that at least one editor, in whatever guise, stands between you and your readers. (Even if you opt for self-publishing you will, at some stage, have to play the role yourself or ask someone else to do it.)

In our collective eagerness to find that elusive perfect literary agent, we writers too often forget that it's editors we really should be looking for and talking with.

I have two very good friends who are editors. One works for the Oxford University Press and is responsible for acquiring academic textbooks; the other is the former founding editor of an influential international art journal, and is now best described as an editor-at-large.

The only real commonality is that they spend a lot of their time in Business or Club Class, at someone else's expense, jetting between continents. My OUP friend has considerably more air miles, having logged visits to the Caribbean, Germany, Holland, Jordan and Spain as well as the States.

My OUP friend spends a fair proportion of her time talking with writers and educationalists; my art journal friend spends most of his time hustling, and negotiating with managing editors, proprietors and board members of publishing houses, foundations and galleries.

I could describe myself as an editor - my main role in producing the translations our partnership (WordBirds o Pajaros de la Palabra) undertakes is to ensure consistency with our house-style, or the style parameters defined by our clients. However, our contact with the writers (Spanish, Catalan and South American media academics, media-literacy activists and medical researchers) is usually mediated through a representative of the organisation responsible for publication of the material. Although we do work on the galleys with designers and printers to further ensure consistency.

We usually meet the writers post-publication - and it's always a pleasure to hear their praise for our efforts.

A quick scan through the range of editors listed here in the Editors' Blogs sidebar will demonstrate the diversity of roles and tasks editors take on during the publishing process - and should convince you that it's they, not agents, you should really be spending time and effort getting to know.

But how? Well, the easiest way is to become an editor yourself. You will have noticed (please don't say you haven't ...) that a large proportion of agents were once editors, or have remained editors, or will become editors and/or writers.

From the outside looking in it often seems that publishing is a closed loop, with editors for one set of publishers offering their writing to editors working on behalf of another set of publishers, sometimes directly, sometimes via an agent who used to work for .... you get the picture.

Still confused? It is a bit of a tangle.

Here's an interesting article from Salon which should help untangle some of it for you.

Are you an editor? If so, it would be good to hear from you.
Have you had experience of working with an editor? Please share.

MACMILLAN NEW WRITING

If you're looking to take a break from the never-ending circus of finding an agent then here's a publisher's imprint you may be interested in - Macmillan New Writing.

A simple concept, and a straightforward process. You're a writer with a polished MS, they're a publisher with a list to fill. You send them your MS, they read it then let you know.

It seems a long time ago now, but when the scheme launched in 2005 it prompted Hari Kunzru, author of The Impressionist, to describe the scheme as the Ryanair of publishing.

To read WriteWords's interview with Macmillan New Writing's editor, Will Atkins, go here.

And, if you're really interested you could seek out Mike Barnard's book on the scheme.

And writer Faye L. Booth gives an illuminating account of her experience with Macmillan New Writing on the Hags, Harlots, Heroines website.

I am surprised and not surprised more publishers have not explored this route. Surprised because it seems an all-round win-win scenario:

• Writers - reduced decision time
• Editors - direct access to writers and a much wider range of material

Adding up to savings in the three largest overheads in the creative writing business:

• Time
• Ink
• Paper

Not surprised because it eliminates interlocutors from the process:

• Agents
• Marketeers

Will Atkins has posted some of his thinking on the dreaded slush-pile over at Picador here.

From the outside looking in one of the attractive features of the scheme is that it seems to have fostered a camaraderie among its writers and, if interested, you may want to visit the group blog before submitting your work.

If you live in the US, then you might not think that Macmillan New Writing would be interested in you. But you'd be wrong. Go check out Tomorrowville.

In 2006 I submitted an earlier version of my novel. About four weeks later I received an e-mail telling me I had sent a zipped or compressed file which couldn't be opened. Odd, I didn't then know how to create a compressed file. I think the problem arose because I'd created the file in an early version of OpenOffice and Macmillan could only accept .docs. I converted the text to Word, using OpenOffice's onboard file converter, intending to re-send, but the resulting text was a right old mish-mash, way beyond re-formatting. (The most recent version of OpenOffice Write features a much more reliable converter). I haven't yet re-sent.

It's encouraging to see a UK publisher embrace e-working but disappointing to find they only embrace the Microsoft version of e-working.

Now the novelty has worn off, and things have calmed down, I think Macmillan New Writing has proved itself a useful ally to debut writers.

Have you checked it out yet?

Projects & Products: An Introduction to Self-publishing blogs & sites

In June last year my partner, her son and I visited the Prado. We visited the great art museum for three reasons:

• We love the place.
• My partner was keen for her 16 year old son to get a good dose of kulcha.
• I needed, again, to look at a few of Goya's works (research for my novel After Goya ).

Mission successful -- and a bonus. While wandering the galleries, Cris, my partner's son, bought me a 1€ pocket-guide to Goya's cuadros negros (black paintings). It's a good little guide. I was taken by the all-round quality of production; interesting, well laid out text and drawings, and, of course, details from Goya's works, and only 1€. Before we left the museum I bought another copy for a friend in the UK -- and dead cheap and easy to post.

On the train back to Barcelona I began to ruminate on the possibilities of publishing my novel, After Goya, as a series of pocket-sized books in a very similar format to the Prado guide.

The novel is in three parts. I could, I thought, publish Part One - perhaps even persuade the Prado to stock it - and test the market.

The more I thought about it the more the idea seemed right - there was a kind of poetry to the idea. But did it make sense?

Advantages

• Relatively small outlay for an initial print run of 1000 (or 2000 if running with simultaneous Spanish edition).
  
• Small size = reduced stock storage problems - the whole run could be delivered in just four medium-sized boxes.
• Cheap and easy to pack and post - could perhaps absorb cost of shipping for direct sales to UK, USA and Canada.
• Low-cost risk to buyer -- if they don't like it, well, they haven't lost much. And if they do like it, then I have them on the hook for Part Two.
• Small, lightweight, durable and easily portable format could make it an attractive stock item for non-book outlets e.g. , newspaper kiosks, tourist offices and vending-machines.
• Translating 30,000 words for a Spanish language edition didn't seem as daunting as translating 95,000.
• Pocket-size = I could use it as a sampler for agents and editors I meet at parties.
• Light weight and small size = practical freebie for UK air passengers to Málaga on the day the novel begins, or rail passengers (a cover-mount for on-board magazine?) on the exact same RENFE (Spanish National Railways) train the main protagonists take .
  
• If Part One successful, and Part Two and Part Three followed, the revenue stream (both gross and net) could be potentially greater than a single product.
• And, if it didn't sell, and I couldn't give it away, well, no big loss - and I'd have a pretty good clue from readers (not agents) whether my writing was any good or not.
  

Because the novel is essentially an art caper it could sell through gallery and museum shops - and not just in the UK (the name-checked Bowes for example) but in Spain: the Prado, the Goya Birthplace Museum in Fuendetodos, Goya related museums in Zaragoza, and name-checked museums and galleries in Barcelona, Córdoba and Málaga.

I liked the whole idea of a part series -- sort of harking back to the penny dreadful (the 3€ dreadful?) notion. Part One does end on a cliffhanger, and readers cannot resist turning to the next page -- surely my readers would buy Part Two?

Offloading a thousand of these, through giveaways and sales, would be a cinch I thought. Or would it? And then I thought, "Hang on, I'm a writer, not a publisher."

So, I ...

...to be continued ...

SIDEBAR ALERT: Publishers' Blogs

Why do we read publishers' blogs?

What do we want, what do we need from them? Market information? Formatting tips for submissions? Marketing ideas? Insider gossip? A sense of connection? Daily commentary on the struggles and joys of wrestling with writers, printers and distributors? An introduction to their editor or agent? Possibly a mix of all the above plus.

Non-writing readers' needs are different; they're possibly looking for giveaways, signed copies, dates and venues of appearances, news of re-issues and future projects, movie and TV spin-offs, or the opportunity to ask the author a question, or thank the author for their efforts. Most of them are satisfied with access to a well-designed website.

And bookblog reviewers visit publishers' blogs in the hope getting their hands on advance copies, or lining up an interview or a guest blog post by a writer.

FROM PITCH TO PUBLICATION - Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Novel Published - by Carole Blake

I think we all have a bit of a twinge, bit of a cringe, when we recall our first efforts of getting our work onto a publisher's editor's desk.
Yes, publisher's editor, not literary agent. Because, before we knew any different, we didn't even query -- just composed a confident covering letter bundled it with our typescript (or handwritten ms) and winged it off to a publisher.*

Yes, we had the Writer's and Artist's Yearbook (first published in 1906), but it didn't offer many clues about prevailing markets.

Today, apart from publishers such as: Alma, Canongate, Constable & Robinson, Monday Books, Myrmidon, Macmillan New Writing, Snowbooks, and Two Ravens Press, we all know, personal connections notwithstanding, we need a literary agent to broker our introductions to commissioning editors.**

And, today, we can call on the generous advice of J.A. Konrath, Miss Snark, the Query Shark, the Frugal Editor, and the Evil Editor, and consult Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages and How to Write a Great Query Letter, to help us craft a killer query. They are all useful, reliable and recommended sources. However, their expertise is in helping you with specific, technical aspects of the query process.

From Pitch to Publication by Carole Blake is a good, solid source of advice and information which discusses the query hurdle within the context of the whole process, from deciding what to write, through to deciphering royalty statements. It should be considered the standard work for U.K. based commercial fiction writers. And I'm sure a good many U.S. based writers will find it very useful. The index is excellent.

Carole Blake, co-proprietor of Blake, Friedmann Literary, TV & Film agency, (where singer-songwriter Dido once worked as an assistant) knows what she's writing about, and she's a popular speaker at several writers' get-togethers.

I know some writers cavil at some of her advice, such as: "You shouldn't send manuscripts [to prospective agents] that smell (As a life-long non-smoker I have sometimes reeled at the smoky smell given off as a manuscript is unwrapped from its envelope. I could never take a cigarette-smelling manuscript to my home to read, I would find it too unpleasant.)." But I regard that as useful information.

I will stress that Carole Blake's formula (p.31 in the 1999 edition) for an ideal submission (query) package is very much her own, designed to meet her needs when considering material -- you should always format and package your queries according to the wishes of the specific agent you are approaching. Always check -- even individual agents within the same agency have their own preferences.

* I did exactly this with a collection of short-stories way back in 1973 - and it worked - prompting dialogue with an editor at Macmillan which lasted several months.

** Browsing around I turned up quite a few (so far U.K. based only) publishers who will accept submissions from writers - so I'll research this, and post a list of links to publishers who will accept submissions from writers.

AUTHONOMY

I first became aware of UK based Harper's not Collins' Authonomy critique and plug site through the Grumpy Old Bookman. In a spate of enthusiasm I signed on. Months rolled by with no discernible signs of life on the site before re-surfacing in my purview through an invitation to test a beta version which had come via YouWriteOn. So, I visited again --- Woah! By comparison with YouWriteOn's more straightforward approach the Authonomy site at first seemed unnecessarily over-complicated and more than a tad intimidating.

If YouWriteOn's message board is a schoolyard then Authonomy's forum is a sixth-form common room, or a JCR at a Midlands university, cluttered with a rude mix of earnest fellows, smartarse slackers who routinely mistake mordant comment for wit, sensitive types who've spent too long reading de Beauvoir and Sartre, look-at-me airheads dancing on the coffee tables, and the occasional genius lurking in the corner taking it all in while jotting notes for tomorrow's seminar.

Contributors upload work for critique then roam the site to find, read and comment on others' efforts in the hope that this activity will garner sufficient positive regard to bring the attention of an editor from one of Harper's not Collins' imprints.

If reviewers like what they read they can back it by putting the title on a virtual bookshelf; if undecided, or wish to re-visit the work for closer appraisal, they can put it on a watchlist. There's no scoring; titles are positioned on the chart in line with the number of bookshelves they have appeared on. But it's not quite so straightforward, some reviewers' bookshelves count more highly than others.

On the last day of the month non-fiction as well as fiction titles which make the top 5 of what's called the Editor's Desk, join a queue for a critique from one of Harper's not Collins' editors.

There's no minimum and maximum word count for comments/critiques, so these vary wildly between 'brilliant' or 'crap' and 2000 word, in-depth essays.

The site also features an ongoing book chart based on titles' cumulative support from reviewers, and a blog featuring invited editors and writers.

There's a lot of coralling and caballing, backscratching and game playing involved. A private messaging system reinforces the networking aspect of the site.

Some contestants in this beauty pageant have confessed to spending 16 hours a day on the site.

The forum can be a veritable viper's nest of vituperation, snark, nark, nay-saying, bullying, fawning and faint praise -- some of it wittty and amusing, though most of it dull, plodding and self-serving.

There are some good people on the site, and a few very good writers, but be prepared to wade through much idle, bland natter masquerading as wit to find them.

What are your perceptions of Authonomy? What's been your experience of uploading your work?

YOUWRITEON.COM - Part One of Three

A UK based, free to join, writers' critique site for long and short fiction in English which accepts submissions from anywhere in the world.

YouWriteOn have helped a few writers get published one way or another -- among them Douglas Jackson -- author of Caligula

I used to* like YWO and found it very useful.

YouWriteOn's message board often comes across as a schoolyard wherein kids of all ages and backgrounds, and the occasional troubled school-leaver (i.e. published author), wander around making friends, shouting the odds, falling out, making up again, ganging up on a geek or a nerd, otherwise causing mischief, or sucking up, like teachers' pets, to good ol' Ted (Ted Smith the site's erstwhile host).

But Ted is not so much a Headteacher as a harried and harassed form teacher subbing for the Deputy Head while negotiating with the caretaker, catering staff, visiting teachers and inspection teams -- often forgetting he's left a class unattended.

It's all good fun -- especially when someone stomps off site and you're left wondering whether they're going to return -- a la Columbine -- armed with a gun and a gang recruited from another crit site. That said, the message board can be a useful source of information.

The process of uploading work (minimum 6000 words) is a bit tedious (it's dissuaded me from uploading more work more frequently) and doesn't allow much latitude with formatting.

The quality of the crits varies wildly from dim witted, incoherent, or opaque nonsense to very precise, thought provoking, insightful and encouraging commentary. I've not yet read any rave reviews that are as gushy as some I've read on Authonomy.

Having signed up and been assigned a text (which can be accepted or rejected) you are allowed four days to post a minimum 1oo words review to earn a credit which can then be assigned to your own work in order to get a review.

Reviews are scored across 8 categories from 1 to 5 and then processed using standard deviation to position the title on a chart. The five highest placed titles on the last day of the month are put forward for a critique from someone who is employed by Random House, or by one of YouWriteOn's regular retainers. Members also have the option of saving time and hassle and paying for a 'professional' critique.

Members can also use YouWriteOn as a route to a POD edition of their work (but more on this aspect in another post).

If you are looking for an anonymous critique from someone whose skills and experience may exceed your own, or who, conversely, may have only started writing in earnest last week, then YouWriteOn is probably a good place to visit.

What's been your experience of YouWriteOn?

[*see Part Three]