Tracking Submissions

I once submitted a novel to the same agent twice. I forgot I’d already sent it to him and was embarrassed to get two rejections letters within a couple of days of each other. Not very professional. That humiliating moment taught me I needed a system to track submissions. Every writer needs a system. Here are a few that work.

Online tracking: Author Advance, formally Litmatch offers a free online service to track submissions. The only drawback to this system is it only tracks agents and agencies and only those in it’s database. Still it’s a good system.

Excel: Setting up a table in Excel to track submissions is a good method if you know how to work with tables. Column heading can include these: Date submitted, Work submitted, Agent or Publisher, Materials sent, Answer, Additional Materials sent.

MS Outlook: If you have MS Outlook or a similar program, this is a good way to track submissions. Set up a contact for each agent and publisher you submit to. You can keep track of these by placing them in a new contact folder called submissions. You can also make subfolders for each project. The contact info has a note section where you can add any info you want. To keep track of answers, you can set up color coded categories. Submission pending would be yellow, additional material or acceptance would be green, and rejections would be red. You can add in the note section whether it was a form rejection or if they had advice for further reference. You can even add a flag to follow up on submissions after a certain amount of time.

MS Word: You can have a page in Word for each project. Each paragraph has information about someone you want to submit to and what materials you’re submitting. Color code each agent or publisher by using the text highlight color. You can get as elaborate with this as you want by not only tracking the submissions through different colors, but by tracking first, second, and third choices for submitting before you send out any material. One advantage to this method is all information about each project is in one document. Another is you can add as many notes as you want without limiting it to an Excel table box.

If you have some ideas for tracking submissions that have worked for you and aren’t listed here, please share them in the comments.

Fiction Proposal Biographical Page

The biographical page consists of two parts. Part one is the biographical sketch, and part two is past publications. 

Biographical Sketch:

Don’t put too much effort in this section. You don’t want to write a complete biography about how you wanted to write since you were in third grade. The main thing you want here is the following:

Name

Location: This is important information if you live near the setting of your novel. Otherwise you’ll want to write something like “I live in Akron, Ohio.”

Family: married, number of children. You can mention this, but don’t dwell on it unless you’re related to Jerry Jenkins.

Education: Only have this if you have training of education in something that relates to writing such as an English degree or you’ve taken a writing course. If the story touches on something where your education helps, go ahead and put that. For instance, if you’re writing about a police officer and you’ve taken law enforcement training, that would be applicable. Also if you’ve had nurses training and are writing about hospital life, put that down.

Career: Only list this if it’s applicable.

Writing Groups: If you belong to any writing groups, list these.

Websites/Blogs: List any websites or blogs you have.

Past Publications:

If you’ve been published at all, include this section. Otherwise leave it out. Also leave out any self-published or vanity published books or novels unless they’ve sold over 10,000 copies. POD and e-books can be listed if you didn’t have to pay to have them published. You’ll want to include name of publication, date, and publishing company.

Fiction Proposal Sell Sheet

The sell sheet is the second page of your fiction proposal. Not all agents or publishers require a sell sheet, but some do. Even if they don’t, it doesn’t hurt to add a sell sheet to your proposal.

Your sell sheet should include the following elements:

Promo Sentence Sales Handle:

These are sometimes called loglines or taglines. This is one sentence or a couple of short sentences, sometimes just a phrase, that gets you interested in the book. To get an idea of how to write a sales handle, look at best-selling novels or popular movies. Here’s a few good ones.

The Patriot: Before they were soldiers, they were family. Before they were legends, they were heros. Before there was a nation, there was a fight for freedom.

Air Force One: Air Force one is hijacked with the president and his family aboard.

Independence Day: Aliens try to invade earth on Independence Day.

Liar, Liar: An attorney, because of a birthday wish, can’t tell any lies for 24 hours.

The Hunt for Red October: A Soviet submarine captain uses Russia’s ultimate underwater weapon as a means to defect to the west.

A good logline has three components:

• Who the story is about (protagonist)
• What he strives for (goal).
• What stands in his way (antagonistic force).

Back Cover Promotion:

This is the one to two paragraphs you would have on the back cover of your novel telling what your book is about. You don’t want to give away endings or surprises here. The Missionary by William Carmichael and David Lambert has an example of a good one. 

David and his wife Christie rescue impoverished children in the slums of Venezuela. But for David, that’s not enough. The supply of homeless children is endless because of the corrupt policies of the Venezuelan government.

In a rare moment of anger, David lashes out publicly against the government, unaware of the chain reaction that will soon follow.

When the CIA offers David a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play a key role in a “bloodless” coup, he decides to go for it. But little by little, he falls into an unimaginable web of deceit that ends in a desperate, life-or-death gamble to flee the country with his wife and son, with all the resources of a corrupt dictatorship at their heels.

Genre:

Tell what genre this is. If it fits in more than one genre, list only two and place the most important one first. The exception to this is if the novel fits in the Christian category. Then you can list Christian, then two genres. For more information about the different genres, click here.

Word Length:

You can estimate here to the nearest thousand. Also your word processor program word count is acceptable. There’s no need to use any complicated formulas.

Series:

If this novel is part of a series, list the other books and a short blurb on what they’re about.

Purpose or Spiritual Premise:

Some agents require this. Don’t sweat about it because it’s not a deal breaker. Just list any theme you notice. If you have scripture the theme is based on, list that here too.

History of the Manuscript:

This is important information for agents. They will want to know if you’ve submitted the manuscript to any publishers.

The Fiction Proposal

Most agents and publishers at some point during the submission process ask for a proposal. There are many books and articles out there that teach how to write a non-fiction proposal but very few about fiction proposals.

For the next few posts after Thanksgiving, I’ll cover different aspect of the fiction proposal. This post covers what should be in a proposal and how to format it. Different agents and editors require various things in their proposals. My recommendation is to write a full proposal. If you do this, you can delete certain parts not needed for your submissions, but you won’t have to rewrite a new proposal for each agent. Here’s what you should have in a full proposal.

Cover Page: The cover page should have your contact information and the title of your proposal. In the left hand header, have the contact info. Center the title in the middle of the page. Here’s an example.

 

Name

Address

City, State Zip

Phone Number

Email

Website or Blog

 

TITLE

A Proposal by Name

Genre

Word Count of Entire Manuscript

 

Sell Sheet: On the second page, you should start page numbers in the right hand corner. The second page is a sell sheet. I’ll talk about what a sell sheet is later. Here’s what’s included in the sell sheet.

• Promo Sentence Sales Handle
• Back Cover Promotion
• Genre
• Word Length
• Series (if applicable)
• Purpose or Spiritual Premise
• History of the Manuscript

Synopsis: Next is the synopsis. Remember to have a three page and a one page synopsis available. For more about the synopsis, click here.

Biography Page: The biography page includes a biographical sketch and past publications.

Marketing Page: The marketing page includes market analysis, similar books, and what you, the author intend to do to market your book.

Sample Pages: Normally sample pages are asked to be included in a proposal. You can tack these onto the end of the proposal. Include another cover page telling the title, how many pages or chapters are included, and your name centered on the page. There’s no need to include contact info on this page because you have it at the beginning of your proposal.

After you write a full proposal, you can tweak it for each publisher or agent’s submission guidelines.

The Synopsis

Most publishers and agents ask for a synopsis when you submit. If you need a proposal, the synopsis is almost always a part of that proposal. I recommend you write a three page synopsis and one page synopsis. The requirements for submissions vary, so if you have both lengths on hand you should be all right. The thing to remember about a synopsis is it will be the worst writing you’ve ever done.

Here’s some things that might help you write your synopsis.

A synopsis is the summary of a full length novel. This means you have to tell the story in as few words as possible. This is the time for you to tell, not show.

The first paragraph of your synopsis should be a short blurp about the novel. Think about the paragraph you would write for the back cover of your book to catch people’s attention.

Single space a synopsis, and have one inch margins and size 12 font.

Write the synopsis in present tense.

Tell the main plot and introduce the main characters. Don’t worry about subplots or minor characters here.\

Tell your ending. You don’t want to hide your surprise ending here. You want to show it off and let the people your submitting to know the novel reaches a satisfactory ending. If you don’t convince them of that, they might not be interested in reading the whole manuscript.

Here’s some links that will help you write your synopsis.

 For the Synopsis Writing Challenged

Writing a Novel Synopsis

The Synopsis Project

Writing the Fiction Synopsis

Queries

Queries are the letters you write to publishers and agents to ask or query them if you can submit your proposal, sample pages or manuscript. This is different than a cover letter. In a cover letter, you’re letting the agent or publisher know what you’re submitting. A query letter asks permission to submit materials. A good query letter will give the agent or publisher enough information to help him decide if he’s interested.

Most queries are sent by email. Some publishers and agents forego the query process and go straight to proposals; most don’t. These are a few things to remember about queries.

Make them short and to the point. Queries should never be more than one page.

Include important information. The query letter should include your contact information, the genre, word count, and any publishing credits you have.

Have a blurb that promotes your book with a hook. This is the time to peak the agent’s or publisher’s interest.

There are many resources out there that tell how to write a good query letter. The most important thing is to spend time writing it. You polished and edited your novel. Do the same with your query. Here’s a few links on other sites about how to write a query letter:

Writing World – How To Write a Sucessful Query Letter

Write At Home – Query Letter Advise & Samples

Writing a Query Letter

Agent Query – How To Write A Query Letter