Good general advice when considering sending your manuscript to a publisher: do your research, find publishers that are interested in the kind of writing you're doing, visit the website and / or talk to the appropriate department or better still individual who handles new submissions, find out what their submission guidelines are and exactly who your manuscript should be addressed to.

ADVICE ON SUBMITTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT TO A PUBLISHER

What To Send
send a covering letter, keep it brief, describe your book, yourself / relevant experience and why your work should be published. Include a synopsis and at least three chapters (around 40 pages).

Presenting Your Manuscript
Make sure your manuscript is presented in a professional manner:

It should be typewritten, double-line spaced, single sided, with at least one inch (25mm) left and right hand margins, each page should be Consecutively numbered.
Do not justify the text.
User a standard font type times-new-roman / courier at 12 pt.
Begin each chapter on a new page.
The pages may need to be separated later, so use a temporary method of holding pages together - paperclip, folder, rubber band.

If it's a picture book - don't send all of the pictures - perhaps include one or two pictures or illustrations, but make it clear that you'd be happy to discuss the best way to approach illustration later.

The Basics: make sure you pay the correct postage for the weight of package you're senting. And, make sure you include a stamped addressed envelope, to make return of your manuscript and hopefully feedback easy.

Your Book Their Product
As well as a great book and outstanding piece of creative writing, you should also see your book as a product that's entering a market. You love to write and publishers are in the business of publishing books that people want to read.

Sell to the Publisher and Your Readership
Achieving publication may require more than just your art: do your research, this begins with identifying the right types of publisher for your type of genre; what other books out there are like yours, who were the publishers of those books? Be professional and prepared to pitch or sell your work to prospective publishers and their prospective audiences. Who will your book appeal too? How is your work different from others? What themes or subjects does it cover that people are most likely to be interested in?

Your Synopsis is Important
Your book comprises several thousand words but you may have as few as 600 in which describe it. Spend time making sure that your synopsis promotes as well as describing your work. Does your synopsis say: who the book's aimed at; why it needs to be published; how many words the manuscript contains; the stage of writing or when it was completed.

Considering Copyright
In the UK, you own the copyright to your work as soon as it is written down. A way of proving this ownership is to post a registered copy of your work to yourself, retaining the package unopened when you receive it. This approach allows the origination date of the work to be verified, should that be necessary in the future.

One Manuscript Many Submissions
Once you have your publisher’s package (covering letter, synopsis, three chapters) ready, submit to as many publishers as possible for the best chance of getting noticed. Also consider sending your work to a registered literary agent - who may be prepared to seek a publisher on your behalf. This is a trade-off between how much time you believe you can devote to the business of submitting and promoting your manuscript, how confident you feel about this process, how much you stand to loss to a middleman and how much time you want to spend away from your first love - writing itself.

A key reference source (book) is 'The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook'.

A solid list of UK-based Publishers (All Genres / All Forms) is available at: babash.com Another excellent writers resource jbwb.co.uk

Also see Vastiana's (publisher Brown Skin Books) Tips on Getting Published

© editor@unheardwords.com, 2006 (all rights reserved)

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