Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What Is An Author’s Submission Service?
Our author’s submission service is one that assists writers of poems, short stories, essays, and book manuscripts in getting their work published. The majority of our clients are published authors, and we screen each individual’s writing to be certain that we are submitting quality work.
What Specific Marketing Tasks Do You Provide For Writers?
We provide much-needed services for serious writers who are hard-pressed to find time to write, given the amount of paperwork and time needed to prepare manuscripts and research markets. Specifically, we:
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REVIEW for acceptance purposes all work writers send us. Our panel of readers reviews samples sent to us to see if your writing meets our standards. This process may take from one week to one month to complete. This review is free. We do not offer a written critique of your work. This is a decision-making, in-house process only for the purpose of determining whether or not we believe we can be of help to you.
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RESEARCH MARKETS from the database of publishers, agents, journals, and magazines that we’ve built over many years. Submissions are based on many things including your publishing history, length of work, content of work, who is reading what and when, theme issues, etc.
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REQUEST GUIDELINES for every magazine to which we submit. We have thousands of guidelines and sample magazines on file in our office. If a market book states the magazine reads from September to May, this information may be outdated and we adjust our database information based on rejections/acceptances received from all clients.
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PREPARE QUERY LETTERS to agents for book-length projects. We take the mystery out of writing queries and encourage agents to read your manuscript pages. We also create cover letters for all submissions sent to literary journals.
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PROOFREAD manuscripts and show you where corrections should be made. We know what agents and editors want and their tired eyes will be more receptive to error-free, properly formatted pages. We do not provide major editing. This is a final once-over proofing (included in our fees if you are a full-service client), for industry-standard formatting, grammar, punctuation, etc. We realize you believe your work does not require this important step. However, we’ve yet to receive a manuscript that has not benefitted from this part of the process. Please remember, ultimately, we DO NOT change a word without your approval. You will say yes or no at EVERY proposed correction.
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PREPARE SUBMISSIONS: We enable you to prepare extensive submissions on a regular schedule. This ensures that your work is circulating at all times and enables us to help build momentum for your work over time. This is THE most important factor in a good submission strategy.
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TRACK RESPONSES for each and every submission. This service enables you to stay organized by tracking the history of all submissions over time. You’ll know exactly which submissions have been returned (with or without comment) and which are pending. We provide an updated listing of all submissions every 60 days.
How Are Your Services Different Than A Literary Agent’s?
Agents don’t deal with publishing poetry and short stories because there is no money in it for them. The standard 15% commission does not serve them well when dealing with short literary works such as poetry, short fiction, or creative non-fiction. The most viable markets for these genres are found in literary journals, which are non-paying markets. In other words, the majority of literary journals pay in contributors’ copies only. Although these are reputable magazines and help clients build important publication credits, a 15% commission of zero is zero.
Do You Have Connections Within The Publishing Industry?
Submissions we do on behalf of our clients are not identified as “prepared by Writer’s Relief,” and each client’s work stands on its own. Most publishers, agents, and editors of literary magazines know about our services and welcome our submissions because they are all properly and professionally prepared. In fact, over the years, we’ve enrolled many editors of literary magazines as clients of Writer’s Relief. They’ve used our strategies when submitting their own work.
