(no subject)
What happened earlier with my mail made me think of two things:
(1) We need interns for the fall (Sept. - Dec.) and spring (Jan. - June). People who want to be interns should go look here. You must be receiving school credit in order to intern with us. Yes, it sucks. No, we can't waive that rule for you. Sorry.
(2) All the questions people have about readers.
A reader is someone, usually freelance, who is hired to read submissions and give us "reader reports". A reader report is a summary of the book, and a bit of critique. This can range from a three page rant on the ridiculousness of the characters, to a succinct three lines.
This is a job we're asked about a lot. People send in their resumes and offer to read mss for us. We rarely hire strangers to do this work here at Tor, though. We have a lot of ex-interns and a lot of freelance people, all of whom we know and like and trust.
Trust is the most important word there. If someone is going to read a manuscript for us, we need to know that this person understands genre conventions, understands writing, understands what we're looking for -- etc.
Most of the reader reports we get look like this:
Romantic futuristic YA fantasy
SYNOPSIS: Girl in the future must decide: cheerleading or physics? Will she fall for handsome male cheerleader O'Neill, or snarky physicist McKay?
CRITIQUE: Memorable, funny, with strong characters and satisfying ending. Definitely needs a second read!!
...or they look like this:
Romantic futuristic YA fantasy
SYNOPSIS: Girl in the future must decide: cheerleading or physics?
CRITIQUE: Melodrama-laden, boring, predictable, sexist. Not what I'd want my 15 yr old reading. The romance is particularly forced -- the stereotypical blonde cheerleader has to choose between the stereotypical jock or the stereotypical geek.
Frankly, most of the reader reports tell us that the writing just isn't good enough to be competitve with the other stuff we're publishing, not to mention the stuff that's selling the best in its particular genre.
Unless someone is an author we're already working with, chances are good that a full ms. is going to get sent off to a reader. Some editors use them more than others, of course. The bare truth is that editors have a lot of freaking things to read, and those things are more important than submissions.
Yes, we value submissions. That is how we find new authors to publish. But we really do have to focus our energies on the stuff we have under contract already, the stuff we're going to use to make money for our company. Readers are really helpful as sifters. We have so many submissions -- forget the slush for a second. Just looking around my own office, I have more than twenty full manuscripts that I requested! Other editors have more (some have fewer), but either way -- I can't read all of those within a month of when I requested them and edit the five novels on my desk and do deals for two more books and -- well, etc.
Here's how the process generally works: editor requests ms., and it arrives, and she realizes that it is pretty much the worst timing ever, and she's never going to read it within even three months. However, this can right now go one of two ways: editor reads first few pages and realizes that the ms. sucks anyway, or editor reads first few pages and realizes that it might actually be good.
If it's the former, she flips through the ms. to make sure that the prose sucks all the way through, or that the characters really do stay boring -- and let me tell you, I have been doing this for more than six years already, and my first instinct is pretty much always right. Sometimes books that I've rejected get picked up by other editors and published to great success -- and yet, when I see them in bookstores and flip through them (or buy and read them)... I still dislike them and think they're bad. So make of that what you will.
If the latter happens, the editor tends to send the book to a reader. If the reader recommends a second read, the editor will read the ms.; if the reader recommends rejection, the editor will flip through to see if the reader is on target (some readers include citations in their reader reports as proof) and then... make their own decision.
My readers tend to be right on target. I've sent manuscripts to readers that I've bought, and ones that I've rejected. It isn't an indication of how interested editors are in the project -- it's an indication of how busy they are with books that are already under contract.
In general.
Your mileage may vary.
(Editors reading this, feel free to jump in with your own process.)
(1) We need interns for the fall (Sept. - Dec.) and spring (Jan. - June). People who want to be interns should go look here. You must be receiving school credit in order to intern with us. Yes, it sucks. No, we can't waive that rule for you. Sorry.
(2) All the questions people have about readers.
A reader is someone, usually freelance, who is hired to read submissions and give us "reader reports". A reader report is a summary of the book, and a bit of critique. This can range from a three page rant on the ridiculousness of the characters, to a succinct three lines.
This is a job we're asked about a lot. People send in their resumes and offer to read mss for us. We rarely hire strangers to do this work here at Tor, though. We have a lot of ex-interns and a lot of freelance people, all of whom we know and like and trust.
Trust is the most important word there. If someone is going to read a manuscript for us, we need to know that this person understands genre conventions, understands writing, understands what we're looking for -- etc.
Most of the reader reports we get look like this:
Romantic futuristic YA fantasy
SYNOPSIS: Girl in the future must decide: cheerleading or physics? Will she fall for handsome male cheerleader O'Neill, or snarky physicist McKay?
CRITIQUE: Memorable, funny, with strong characters and satisfying ending. Definitely needs a second read!!
...or they look like this:
Romantic futuristic YA fantasy
SYNOPSIS: Girl in the future must decide: cheerleading or physics?
CRITIQUE: Melodrama-laden, boring, predictable, sexist. Not what I'd want my 15 yr old reading. The romance is particularly forced -- the stereotypical blonde cheerleader has to choose between the stereotypical jock or the stereotypical geek.
Frankly, most of the reader reports tell us that the writing just isn't good enough to be competitve with the other stuff we're publishing, not to mention the stuff that's selling the best in its particular genre.
Unless someone is an author we're already working with, chances are good that a full ms. is going to get sent off to a reader. Some editors use them more than others, of course. The bare truth is that editors have a lot of freaking things to read, and those things are more important than submissions.
Yes, we value submissions. That is how we find new authors to publish. But we really do have to focus our energies on the stuff we have under contract already, the stuff we're going to use to make money for our company. Readers are really helpful as sifters. We have so many submissions -- forget the slush for a second. Just looking around my own office, I have more than twenty full manuscripts that I requested! Other editors have more (some have fewer), but either way -- I can't read all of those within a month of when I requested them and edit the five novels on my desk and do deals for two more books and -- well, etc.
Here's how the process generally works: editor requests ms., and it arrives, and she realizes that it is pretty much the worst timing ever, and she's never going to read it within even three months. However, this can right now go one of two ways: editor reads first few pages and realizes that the ms. sucks anyway, or editor reads first few pages and realizes that it might actually be good.
If it's the former, she flips through the ms. to make sure that the prose sucks all the way through, or that the characters really do stay boring -- and let me tell you, I have been doing this for more than six years already, and my first instinct is pretty much always right. Sometimes books that I've rejected get picked up by other editors and published to great success -- and yet, when I see them in bookstores and flip through them (or buy and read them)... I still dislike them and think they're bad. So make of that what you will.
If the latter happens, the editor tends to send the book to a reader. If the reader recommends a second read, the editor will read the ms.; if the reader recommends rejection, the editor will flip through to see if the reader is on target (some readers include citations in their reader reports as proof) and then... make their own decision.
My readers tend to be right on target. I've sent manuscripts to readers that I've bought, and ones that I've rejected. It isn't an indication of how interested editors are in the project -- it's an indication of how busy they are with books that are already under contract.
In general.
Your mileage may vary.
(Editors reading this, feel free to jump in with your own process.)