10 Reasons To Not Submit Your Story To Editors And Agents

I thought I would take today to talk about all of the reasons why you should not go out and submit to editors and agents. I am serious here. I think there are a lot of reasons why you should not waste your time submitting. Consider these 10...

1. You have not researched the editor or agent. You have finished your story and you immediately head to the local library to get their latest copy of the Guide to Editors and Literary agents and start submitting. Don't even get me started on the fact that the book you are looking at is probably out of date. The issue here is that you have no clue what these people are really looking for. You simply have a name and contact and you start submitting. If you have not taken days examining everything about that company, what they really are looking for, what they like, what they don't like and their personalities, then you are not ready to move on. 
2. You have not finished your story. Look, when I say finished, I mean it is 100% complete. Not just the rough draft that you feel you need to polish up. Not a story that is still in the works. Not a story that has to go to the critique group for a couple more passes. I mean, this story is finished. YOU have read it through. YOU have polished it up. YOU have copy edited the story to death. It is done. 
3. You believe mass query letter process is the best way to go. You have heard about simultaneous submissions so this should not be a problem, right? No way! This is not a situation where you write one letter, copy and paste it into an email and label it "Dear Editor/Agent" and then fill it with drivel trying to make us believe you have done your research. Your story DOES NOT work with everyone. You have to be professional. Along the same lines, writing the letter and just attaching it to an email is not going to work either. Don't waste our time even opening up that letter. If you are lucky, you may get a rejection letter, but the odds are, your project will go straight to the trash file in our email.
4. You have not learned about how the industry works. So you wrote a story. Big deal. If you take your lap top to Starbucks and start talking to people, the odds are 25% to 50% of those people will also say they have written a novel, or are writing one. This is a business and it is up to you to know how the business works. You need to know and understand the process a book goes through to get to the shelves and the readers. You need to know how contracts work, the role of the editors, agents and publicists. You need to know about advances, royalties and so forth. If all you believe about the industry is that you write, someone prints it and you make money, then you have a long way to go.  
5. You believe your story is worthy of going straight to movies. You are not that good. Sorry to say this. Many authors may sell their rights to a movie producer but nothing is going to happen with your story. There are just too many people out there writing actual movie scripts that are going to outshine your book that will have to then be converted to a movie script. If you are an author, write books. If you want to do movies, write screen plays. 
6. You claim that authors such as James Patterson are going to endorse your novel. Just because you stood in line with 200 other authors at a books signing and met some famous author does not mean your book is going to be endorsed by this person. The same goes for all of you who just sent your unsolicited book to Oprah and received a form letter saying their company will look at it. Sorry to disappoint you, but Oprah is NOT considering your book. This was a nice way to say, no.
7. Your story is so different from anything out there it will stand out to readers. Guess what, if your story is that different, there is a reason you are getting those rejections. Your story does not fit with the market. This goes back to taking the time to know the industry. Do we want new and unique books? Yes. Do we want a story that the market will not want to buy? No way. 
8. Your story is a 400,000 word epic novel and is just part 1 of a 10 book series. Are you kidding me? Mass market books are around 100,000 words, Do you really think anyone is going to read this? Now, don't you go start screaming that Game of Thrones was long. Yes, but this person also had other things going for him? Your debut novel is going straight to the trash.
9. You believe the submission process is just hoops and you will do what you want. Wow, you just gave us a big reason to reject you. We have this process set up for a reason. If you think your story is so good that you don't have to follow the rules, then you just got a rejection letter from all of us. This also goes for thinking you can submit projects through social media, or just showing up at a conference and pitching. Yes, I have seen authors who don't pay for conferences, show up and think they will pitch to editors and agents as they sit there in the lobby trying to eat breakfast. 
10. You plan on proving to the world after you get rejected that we were all wrong. OK, if we are all wrong and don't know our you know what from a hot rock, then why did you submit to us in the first place. Do you really think we would want to work with someone with an attitude like this?