Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Today's Lesson: Read the Bleeping Submission Guidelines Carefully
So, I've been working on getting Tort & Retort finished and today I was so happy that I'd finished the first draft. Now, mind you, it's only a 12K story so it's not like I wrote a tome but it's the first one I've FINISHED.

All along I've had a plan to send it to a particular e-publisher and today I was so excited... in a few days I could send it. Especially wonderful since I had a decent blurb and this pub didn't need a (dreaded) synopsis.

Just as I had hit send to wing it over the wires to my lovely critique partner and test readers, Jaynie told me something that *I* should have known already but instead, because I was a dipshit and didn't re-read the submissions guidelines, I didn't. That publisher doesn't accept contemporaries.

NOT the news my lovely rush wanted to hear. I think my excitement deflated faster than the Hindenburg when completely on fire.

arrrrgh - so at 12K it's too short for many houses, especially since I've not pubbed with them before. Hell, I've not pubbed any fiction before. I can't really add a lot to it without some serious work because it's a short, sweet little story with some hot sex, some humor and some erotica epublishing in-jokes. It just doesn't have the bones to slap a lot of meat onto.

I think I settled on a different publisher to try though - and now I have to not only wait for the feedback and fixes I'm sure the first draft will need, but I'll have to write the (insert graphical term for a sexually improbable act here) synposis.

Arrrgh

So - take a lesson from my woes. Read the submissions guidelines over and over... Don't go on memory!

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