I've just come across this http://writerpitch.com/writer/samantha-j-fountain/blog/pitch-publication Writer's submit. Editors select and work with writers. Agents select. Publishers select - maybe. Has anyone done this before / doing it this time / familiar with it? What's the catch? I'm presuming the editing part is free - but nothing is free is it? It doesn't jump out that it's restricted to the US.
I'm not entirely clear on who's involved. Who are the editors? These aren't acquisitions editors, as far as I can tell from the description of what they're doing - are they just freelancers? There are some great freelancers out there, but there are also a lot of quacks. I couldn't find a list of them on the site. In terms of the agents - are all the agents listed under the agent tab involved in this? If so... at least one of them is a bit dodgy, in my opinion, and most of them I don't recognize, but a few of them are with respected firms, so... maybe this is worthwhile? But, really, you could just query them in the regular way. And then of course the submissions to publishers are just part of the regular way of doing things, once you have an agent. The only benefit of this I see is the free editing, and the value of that will depend entirely on the quality of the editors, which is unknown, at least to me. Can anyone see a list of the editors and their qualifications?
Editors appear to be here http://sfountain.com/notes I am in the process of submitting. I received a response today of ' I think you write well, and there are some good observations, but I wasn't sure I wanted to read a whole novel with that narrator! If you don't snag an agent with this, I'd be interested in reading any other crime you write. In the meantime, best of luck with it. ' So, perhaps I need some professional editing?
@BayView is right. All of the editors are freelancers, which means they will help you with your pitch and evaluate your ms (my guess would be that any additional editing work, such as line-by-line, would likely be extra) but not necessarily help you "jump the line".
I couldn't see what was in this for the editors - unless the writers are paying them. I'll take a look at any chance to 'jump the line' though'. Thanks both.
Good point. My husband always says 'follow the money' and he's right. Unless they are working for free (great humanitarians) then somebody is paying them. Find out who.
I think they're probably using it for promotion. There are a lot of aspiring writers looking for chances like these, and by having to 'pick' your editors for your submission, everyone who enters the system is going to be studying these editors. Pretty good way to get their names and bios in front of people who are most likely to be looking for freelance editors. As long as there's no entry fee, I don't see the harm in doing this. But I'd take the editor's opinion at about the same level as a beta reader's - interesting, but not necessarily expert.
I'm thinking along the line of seeing no harm in having a go. I can drop out at the first request for payment. Isn't there a saying about not looking a Trojan horse in the mouth?
I suspect there won't be a request for payment for what is offered up front. What there will be (count on it) is an offer to use them for additional editing services, for which there will be a fee, in which case you'll need to get a sense of whom they've worked with and what kind of work they've done. For example, the editor I used to review my ms was recommended to me by a published writer who had also used her services.
There was virtually no interest in this, I thought a few people might have finished projects and had a go. Still if anyone was interested in the Pitch to Publication thing, here's one of the editors tweeting. If you browse down you'll see how she is considering the pitches sent to her. Eek! https://twitter.com/LaraEdits And I note that one of the other editors is the acquisitions editor for this new publisher. http://pandamoonpublishing.com/pandamoon/submissionguidelines.html
Interesting see comments about pitches - too many names; spelled the editor's name wrong; too many run-on sentences; too many commas in the wrong place. (I presume the last 2 were in the 1st 5 pages submitted with the pitch.) These aren't agents but presented with many submissions every day, I presume agents follow a similar process.
It's interesting that some US agents want no more than a pitch before they will look at anything else. I know a UK agency that has 1 reader. He lays out what he expects, and in the cover letter it is minimum and certainly not a pitch. At least 1 of the editors involved in the P2P is looking at pitches and only looking at the 1st 5 pages if the pitch interests. Seems to me that writing a pitch requires a different ability.
They can probably eliminate quite a few at the pitch stage just because the genre doesn't match their interests or the writer is clearly producing a sub-coherent level of writing. So they couldn't accept based on the pitch, but they could narrow the field, at least.
The heading of any mail submission should show genre and wordcount, so any failing on either of those aspects should be identified immediately. (Though I am surprised that people pitch wrong genre to an agent, or in this case to the editors taking part – yet it happens.) I’ve peeked once before at one of the Twitter #50pitches, or whatever – where agents comment on the 50 pitches as they receive them. It was a little interesting at first, then felt a bit like watching the 1stround of X Factor (which I haven’t seen for ages by the way), and I thought the agents were mocking submissions a little. However, I have had a little fun (if that’s the right word), seeing the editors in the P2P commenting on pitches. So, far the 3 or 4 doing that haven’t been nasty at all and you get a feeling about what works in pitches. (Or not). And of course, there is that little excitement when one of the editors I have selected has made a very pleasing comment about a pitch which sounded like mine. Probably isn’t but it’s more fun than sending off and waiting for 8 weeks for a standard rejection.
I didn't get anywhere in the P2P comp. However, there was no hard sell from the editors, so the comp was ok. (Harmless.) This is general feedback on a similar competition http://dankoboldt.com/new-agent-picks-sff-2015/ The analysis shows less fantasy entries than i expected though i wasn't surprised at the percentage of YA/NA/MG. While the blog is specific to the comp, it might be of some interest to anyone pitching. I prefer UK submission requirements - usually simple covering letters, synopsis and a sample of writing. I've learnt a little on pitching if I should target American agents. I had to use Twitter for the second comp. Never tweeted before and have learnt that the number of followers can be meaningless. I have 7 without trying - though I find myself looking over my shoulder a lot more. Suspect I have wasted enough time and should get stuck into a new project.
