Ignoring Submission Guidelines Is a HUGE Mistake

I recently saw a Tweet about this from a editor. She noted that people were showing up at their office with submissions in hand. Even though this is a big "NO NO", the authors are believing they have to "take a chance since that seems to be the only way to get ahead."

Unfortunately, this is only going to lead to rejections. 

I have heard presenters at conferences and read social media posts by supposed professionals saying that authors need to take chances and to be aggressive when it comes to submissions. A lot of this is driven by recent trends in the general hiring community of making those face-to-face connections and to avoid the slush piles when it comes to resumes. While some of this is true, there are limits. 

I know this is a bit of a repetition for those of you who follow the posts here, but we have submission guidelines for a specific reason. 

Let me say first, submission guidelines involve not just how to submit your manuscript, but what types of stories to submit. This is not rocket science. It is all pretty straight forward and available to ALL authors out there, regardless of age, sex, race or religion. This information is very clearly posted on all of our websites and is easy to read. 

So what mistakes are we seeing (other than showing up at offices)?

SENDING PROJECTS THAT ARE NOT GENRES ACQUIRED - When you see that someone acquires a specific genre, these are not just projects they are interested in right now. Those are generally tagged as #MSWL or Manuscript Wish List. When we see these are the projects we acquire, it means these are the ONLY projects we acquire. 

I am averaging close to 50% of my submissions being projects that I do not acquire. I get memoirs. I get how-to books. I get supposedly well-researched non-fiction projects by university professors, doctors and lawyers. Even though none of these are romance or women's fiction.

When I reject, I frequently get emails back with statements stating "Thank you for letting me know, but I figured I would try" or "I figured you would like my story so much that you would make an exception." Ummm, no. 

SENDING MORE THAN WE ASK OR NOT WHAT WE ASKED FOR - If an editor or agent says to just send a query letter, then just send a query letter. A query letter DOES NOT include the first three chapters of your manuscript in that letter. If we someone says to send your partial embedded in the email, sending an attachment or link to your Google Drive, you have not walked yourself into another rejection letter. 

Let me make this clear using my submission guidelines. At Greyhaus, you have three approaches. 

1) Send a query letter in an email. No attachments. Nothing embedded.

2) Use my online form. That tells you exactly what to include. Even with this one, so many screw this up. Some will label their project as a genre that it isn't, just to get me to read it. I have a box for entering a word count for your story and some include word counts that are either too low or too high. I have a box for you to include a "premise to your story" that is to be no more than 250 words, and yet people will embed their synopsis up to 6+ pages or even the first three chapters. Finally, I have a box that gives you a chance to include any additional information that might be essential which would be things such as prior publishing successes or messages of where you have met me. This is not a place to add that synopsis or partial.

3) Mail a query, 3-5 page synopsis and the first three pages in SNAIL MAIL.

The deal is this. You will be rejected regardless of the quality of your story. You are being rejected because you clearly cannot read clearly posted material, or you cannot follow directions. How will you be able to handle revision editorial letters, if you cannot follow directions. 

There are no loop-holes here. Don't think you are helping. Again, you are only hurting yourself.