Don’t get completely caught up spending time and energy on what you need to know to get in the door. My best advice is to focus on your writing. It’s the one thing you can control, and doing the work only makes you a better writer. Every time you send out unsolicited work is a shot in the dark. We open for unsolicited queries a few times a year at Hub City Press, and I try to look at every single query we receive. As I read each one, I’m thinking about what else we’re publishing that year in our small catalog, if we’ve published something similar recently. To be honest, even little things like how much time I have to read that day factor in when I open the Word doc to read your book. There is, unfortunately, no secret to getting published. Although it helps to know how the industry works, grabbing an editor’s attention requires a tightrope walk of timing and luck. Doing research on what publishers are a fit for you and knowing what your goals for your book are will help widen the tightrope, but the reality is that I say no to very good books all the time. It’s the worst part of my job.
I heard Jamie Quatro say once that writing a book is like building a house, but you don’t know what style the house is as you build. All books are an exploration, but they also need a blueprint. Read the books that you wish you’d written with a pen in hand and learn how their authors do it. Learn or relearn the fundamentals of what makes a story work: plot, situation, voice, interiority, point of view, narrative momentum. The authors of the books in my inbox that connect with me have considered all of those things. With solid craft, you can take all kinds of risks and your reader will trust you. It doesn’t matter what degrees or fellowships or programs or journals have supported your work. Those things tell me about your network—but your book must connect with me as a reader. Good writing, confident structuring, and an ease in the experience of reading is what tells me whether I can take a chance on a book.
—Kate McMullen, managing editor, Hub City Press
Photo credit: Joshua Gaffney