In this Q&A video, David Norrington, Managing Director of Wordcatcher Publishing, explains the three steps authors should take when submitting their book to book publishers.

1. Read their guidelines

Before submitting your book to a book publisher for consideration, you must read through their guidelines. If you don’t understand what’s required from you, there’s a good chance your submission won’t be considered.

2. Read their guidelines again, and adhere to them

Reading the publisher’s guidelines once is not enough. Read them again, and then get to submitting your book. Make sure you stick to their rules because publishers receive so many submissions they couldn’t possibly hope to run with them all. As such, they’re looking for reasons to reject manuscripts that don’t fit their criteria or are poorly presented.

3. Don’t send your submission to everyone

While it might be tempting to send your submission to every publisher around, this is not a wise idea. There are only so many hours in the day, so instead of submitting your poetry collection to a publisher that doesn’t do poetry, your best bet is to submit your work to publishers who are most likely to be interested. That way, you’re not wasting your time, or theirs.

Choose a publisher who will represent your work, don’t just try to ‘get published’. Show that you know how your book will fit into their catalogue.