Saturday, August 23, 2008

Multiple Submissions to the Same House

My colleague Chris Webb is much, much kinder than many people in publishing would be about a project submitted quietly to several editors at the same house.

Agents already know this, but authors may not: within a house, people do talk to each other, and there are some places where a multiple submission like this would mean the house instantly rejects it.
Your Hornswoggler is Andrew Wheeler Released into the wild 8/23/2008 10:24:00 AM
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2 comments:

Jolie said...

Thanks for mentioning this. Can you explain why editors find multiple in-house submissions so annoying?

As for book agents, I've read that some agents get annoyed when they find out an author queried colleagues in their agency, but I think I've also heard some say it doesn't matter. Moreover, sometimes they will think a query is good but not their cup of tea, and they'll pass it on to someone else at the agency who might be interested, only to find that their colleague already has the same query. At that point, one or both agents may or may not be annoyed, depending on personal preference. I haven't read about any hard and fast rule on this, except that you should personalize your query letters to each agent even if you're querying more than one in an agency.

By the way, do editors ever pass on submissions to colleages they think would be interested?

Sat Aug 23, 02:04:00 PM 2008
Andrew Wheeler said...

Jolie: I think it's essentially a turf issue, both at agencies and at publishing houses, with a side order of being annoyed at unnecessary work.

If you're the second person to see a particular project where you work, you're either unknowingly competing with a co-worker or picking up someone's rejects -- neither of which is what most people want to do.

If some time has passed, and the first submission is no longer active, then there isn't as much of a problem. (That's when the pricklier turf issues come in, especially with some kinds of personalities -- your big Type A editors don't like thinking they were anyone's second choice.)

The hard and fast rule, I'd say, is not to submit a project to two editors in the same group of any publishing house (or any agency) at the same time. Ballantine and Crown is OK; two different S&S editors is not OK. The submittor does need to know what the groups are to be able to follow that rule, but she should know that anyway to submit a project appropriately.

Some editors, at some house, do pass on projects to colleagues, but that can wildly vary. I suspect it mostly happens on queries that are good but misaimed; if a project is sent to the right editor to begin with, there won't be anyone else in that house better for it if the first one decides to pass.

Sat Aug 23, 02:51:00 PM 2008

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