Articles

Wednesday, 29 May 2013 22:50

What Do Editors Want? Featured

Written by
Rate this item
(0 votes)

What Do Editors Want?

At a recent SCBWI conference in Denver, Melanie Cecka, Senior Editor for Viking Children’s Books, tried to answer that perennial question, “What are editors looking for?” Her answer–and this is a real kicker–is that because publishers are cutting back on the size of their lists, editors are looking for reasons not to publish your book.

Does this mean that editors are planning to hate every manuscript that crosses their desks? Certainly not. Every time an editor opens an unsolicited submission she’s hoping she’ll find a new, undiscovered talent. But because the volume of books being published has dropped in recent years, each book carries more weight for the publisher. And fiction by new authors in particular must be of the highest quality to compete with the novelizations of movies and television shows crowding the shelves, and picture books based on familiar, popular licensed characters.

When you’re revising your work and sending it out, try to think like an editor. As you attend conferences or read books on publishing, compile a list of “don’ts” that will get your manuscript routed immediately to the rejection pile. Here are some to get you started:

Unprofessional presentation. A cover or query letter that shows the writer clearly doesn’t understand the different age categories of children’s books (such as saying you’ve written a 3000 word picture book for ages 6-11), tells the editor she doesn’t have to read any further. By simply studying recently-published books written for the same age group as your work, you can learn many of the basic “rules.” Sloppy queries, those that explain the writer’s motivation for creating the work (“to teach children about _______”) instead of summarizing the work itself, or submitting five manuscripts at once are all turnoffs to an editor. For help writing query and cover letters, see the resource in the sidebar.

A weak opening. The first paragraph of your book needs to grab the editor and insist that she keep reading. The opening page should introduce your main character, establish the setting and time period, push the action forward and clue the reader into the “hook” of the story (what makes your book different). To learn how to craft strong openings, ask your librarian for award lists (especially those awards voted by children), and read only the first paragraph of the winners. Note how much information you got from this small amount of text. Also note whether you wanted to keep reading, and why.

Lack of vision. Cecka said she looks for stories that make her ask, “What if?” In other words, she wants to identify so strongly with the characters that she’ll wonder what it would be like to live their lives. Fully-developed characters coupled with a unique way of approaching an idea results in a book with vision. The author does more than tell a story–he transports the reader to another place and asks the reader to look at the world in a new way. It’s often clear to an editor from the query letter whether the author has vision, or has written the kind of book children “should” like or “need” to read.

In the end, what distinguishes a manuscript from the hundreds of others in the slush pile is the writer’s passion. If the author positions himself as bestowing a story upon children, or imparting wisdom from a distant, adult perspective, the book will fail. However, if the author is so enthralled with the characters and caught up in the plot that the experience is shared with the reader, the manuscript will shine.

Editors are very subjective critics, so besides writing a strong book the author must appeal to an editor’s tastes, sense of humor, and know enough not to submit a dog book to a cat person. The only way a writer can really know an editor’s preferences is to attend conferences and meet the editors in person, or network with other authors. Barring that, calling the children’s book department at publishers to whom you plan to submit your novel and asking an editorial assistant which editor is interested in middle grade historical fiction is a good backup strategy.

For tips on writing strong cover and query letters, check out Author to Editor: Query Letter Secrets of the Pros by Linda Arms White. It contains over 30 actual letters and book proposals authors used to sell their work, along with pointers on pitching your work to a publisher.


Laura Backes is the publisher of Children's Book Insider, the Newsletter for Children's Writers. For more information about writing children's books, including free articles, market tips, insider secrets and much more, visit Children's Book Insider's home on the web at http://write4kids.com


Click here to return to the index of Articles


Read 1201 times Last modified on Sunday, 14 November 2021 20:34

Comments powered by CComment

Latest Posts

  • Sakshi
    I have been in a state of ‘emotional unwell-being’ for seven years. There, I’ve said it. Why? Well, after my father died, I believed that if I reached out with love to ‘good friends’, counsellors, suitors, and relatives, there could be pockets of joy to offset my grief and loneliness,…
  • The Creative Industry Needs to Look at Things Differently Post Budget 2022
    On 29 October 2021, the Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz tabled Budget 2022 in the Malaysian parliament. RM50 million has been allocated for the arts and culture industry. This comes after a year and a half after the entire industry came to an absolute standstill. With…
  • ‘The Covid Positives’ – life lessons learnt from the pandemic by Phanindra Ivatury
    After a long drawn battle with the biggest catastrophe in our living memory, global humanity is finally getting to see some quintessential ray of light at the end of the treacherous tunnel in the form of COVID-19 vaccines, currently being rolled out to all parts of the globe. A ‘COVID-19…
  • Chaos of Whole Books
    Is it possible to read several books at once? Aneeta Sundararaj finds out. When I was a child, my cousin used to boast that he could read four storybooks at a time. As an adult, when he invested in an e-Reader, he continued to boast that he could…
  • Writing for You? Or for Me?
    Writing for You? Or for Me? ‘You must always write with your reader in mind.’ This was one of the first pieces of advice that I received when I began my writing career. Honestly, I found this extremely hard to do because more often than not, I couldn’t picture my…