While I should be
tackling the final rewrite of the next Hannibal Jones mystery I am instead
focused on my publisher duties, reading through an avalanche of submissions,
sifting the sand in search of 16 nuggets of gold worthy of publication.
Intrigue Publishing
is taking submissions for a Young Adult anthology entitled Young
Adventurers: Heroes, Explorers & Swashbucklers. We want stories of action, adventure and, yes,
intrigue, featuring a teenage protagonist. We welcome spy thrillers, mysteries,
science fiction, paranormal or fantasy stories. Dragons and magic are fine. Straight
adventure stories are also welcome and they could be set in any time period. We’d
love to see a good western or pirate story. The subtitle, “Tales of teens
saving the day in the past, the present, the future & on other worlds” is
an indication of the level of diversity we’re looking for. But I’ve already
encountered a surprising amount of what we DON’T want.
For example, our submission guidelines clearly
state that “The manuscript must be double-spaced, 12-point type, (Times New
Roman or Arial.)” And yet, so far I have received stories in 11 point, one
single spaced, another in a font called Calibri and one in a format called “.pages”
which I can’t open with any software on my computer. If these people can’t get
something as simple as font or format right how much detail do we think they
pay to their prose? And if these simple instructions are too much for them, how
will they respond to an editor’s input?
The submission guidelines also included this
direction: “The important requirements are that the protagonist be a courageous
teenage boy or girl, that the story be gripping with a real sense of risk or
danger, and that the protagonist survives or saves the day through his or her
own intelligence, skill and ingenuity.”
And yet, I’ve read three stories so far in
which the teen protagonist is little more than an observer or the person in
jeopardy who gets rescued by an adult.
So what’s my point? It’s tedious enough
reading weak and poorly written hunting for the ones the rare one worthy to be
in an Intrigue Publishing anthology. If a writer doesn’t bother to adhere to
our submission guidelines they are telling me that they don’t really care if we
buy their story or not. If you DO want
someone to pay for your story, or novel, you dramatically increase your chances
when you give them what they ask for.
And now, back to the search.
