How we go about obtaining the information for your submission

Having determined the publisher/agent you wish to submit your manuscript to, we will send you a questionnaire requesting some information so we can prepare the submission on your behalf.

If we have edited your book, we will know many of these answers and our questionnaire will be tailored to your situation.

Genre and word count

If you’re unsure of the genre, let us know and we will help you work it out.

Information for the synopsis

Check guidelines readily available online about how to write a synopsis. Ask us if you're unsure.

Author biography

You will need to give us a brief author biography. The questionnaire will give you pointers about what information we need you to provide.

Target audience

This refers to the type of readers you see enjoying your book. It may be young adults, or readers of romance, or readers of thrillers, crime, history...

Comparison titles

It will be helpful if you can tell us the titles of other books that are like yours, and authors that are similar to you.

Publishers/agents prefer to see that you have compared your book to other books that are popular and selling well, have been published relatively recently, and are as similar as possible to yours. Don’t be tempted to include outrageously successful books, such as ‘Harry Potter’, but by the same token, don’t choose books that are unsuccessful. If the publisher you are submitting to has published similar books to yours, mention these.

Your reasoning for comparing your book to the books you’ve chosen

We need to explain to the publisher/agent how your book stands out from already published titles. So we’ll ask you to give us a brief description of the other book, then a short (about two sentences), clear, comparative analysis. For example, in a submission for my novel, I stated, ‘Anya Seton’s ‘Dragonwyck’ is set in a similar period (1844) to ‘Winter in Mallorca’ and portrays the same popular Gothic themes of the Romantic era.’

Previous publishing history or writing awards

We will ask you if you have published any other books and if so, ask for the title, publisher and publication date. Likewise, if you have won any writing awards, we will include this in relevant submissions.

How you intend promoting your book

If you have any contacts in the media, it can be very helpful when it comes to promoting your book. These days, publishers’ promotional budgets tend to be limited for all but well-known, multi-published authors, so publishers expect more self-promotion by lesser known or brand-new authors.

Social media

If you have established social media accounts—LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter—it is often helpful for the publisher/agent to know. We will ask you for the number of followers and a link to include to the relevant accounts.

Prepare the email or cover letter

Finally, we will write the accompanying email or cover letter to the publisher/agent for you, following their guidelines. Many publishers/agents ask for electronic submissions (that is, by email). A few still ask for hard copy submissions.

Putting it all together

Once we have written and gathered all the necessary information for the submission, we will:

1. Send you the Microsoft Word files you need to send as attachments to the publisher/agent – e.g. the synopsis.
2. Prepare your manuscript for emailing. For example, if you only need to send the first three chapters, we will extract these and save the document as a separate file in readiness for emailing.
3. Send you the covering email as a Microsoft Word file. Then you can simply copy and paste the text into the email you send the publisher/agent. We will also tell you the wording for the email Subject Line.