Tips on submitting your work

Choose the right publisher or agent; they specialise and will not look at material they are not interested in.

Approach them in the way they prefer. They may only accept work submitted by an agent, a certain magazine may require only an outline of your article. Phone them or look at their websites for details.

Never send the only copy of your work. Always send a reply envelope.

Keep the covering letter professional, that is short and to the point. Do not try to write the ‘memorable’ letter; editors get thousands of submissions and are only interested in the work.

Once you start submitting work, record when and where you sent your various pieces. This will not only stop you pestering editors with the same work but help you to build up valuable information about responses and response times.

If an editor or agent is not interested they will not go into details; it is not worth their time.

If an editor does show interest, even if they don’t actually end up buying the work, you should be pleased; it means your writing is getting better.

For a good list of Agents, Publishers, Magazines and other markets, look in The Writers’ And Artists Yearbook – many libraries will have a copy of this.