Further, I love writers who know the difference between a dash and an em dash. Editors shall grant you a special place in heaven for exercising that knowledge.
If I had to boil it down, I'd say that sample pages drew me in for their voice, clarity of prose, and quickly established tension. Many sample pages did not have a hook at their opening, or they had a hook but the tension dissipated as soon as the hook ended.
We've been vocal about seeking more science fiction and more romance (within all speculative fiction genres), but neither was enough to tip the scales into a request. Nothing is an "automatic request" nor an "automatic rejection."
Of course, "the thing" that makes us decline a query or request more pages is far more difficult to describe than anything that can be quantified on this page.
Queries received in total: 64
Length of query period: 28 days
Received after close of period: 1
Received via Facebook (where we don't accept queries): 1
Note: Not all of these number sets add up to 64. This is because sometimes a manuscript fits in multiple categories, or because it didn't provide info for a particular data set, or because we screwed up the tally somewhere along the way. Please don't get too nit-picky about the numbers; we're word people, not statisticians. Although we did love watching Numb3rs on TV.
- Male: 27
- Female: 31
- Unknown: 5
- Duo of writers: 1
- Science Fiction: 16
- Fantasy: 45
- Primary-world fantasy (e.g. contemporary fantasy, alternate history, urban fantasy): 26
- Second-world fantasy (e.g. high fantasy): 12
- Dimension hopping (e.g. portals between primary-world and second-world): 6
- Science-Fantasy: 1
- Sub-genres we don't publish (e.g. surrealism, psychological horror, ghost novellas/novels): 5
- Fairy tale / retellings: 2
- Paranormal: 8
- Romance or romantic elements: 9
- Novel: 56
- Novella: 6
- Collection: 2
- Anthology proposal: 2
- Lightweights: 11 (43,000, 44,000, 55,000, 56,000, 58,000, 60,000, 60,000, 61,000, 63,000, 64,000, 66,000)
- Heavyweights: 5 (120,000, 138,000, 140,000, 162,000, 192,000)
- No weight (queries that forgot to mention how long the manuscript was): 3
- First-person present tense: 6
- Third-person present tense: 3
- First-person past tense: 10
- Third-person past tense: 37
- Prologues (or other introductory passage): 6
- General Adult: 23
- New Adult: 8
- Young Adult: 17
- Unnamed: 23
- Blatantly mislabeled: 1
- Incorrectly claimed multiple markets: 9
- Requested full manuscripts: 8
- Requested partial manuscripts: 3
- Declined queries: 51
- Declined queries that received personal responses: 17
- Declined queries that received requests to submit future projects: 2
- Re-write requests: 0
- Authors who asked for feedback after receiving a form rejection: 2
- Authors who refuted feedback provided in personalized responses: 1
- Acceptances: 2
- Both acceptances were anthology proposals (Corvidae and Scarecrow), all novel MSs are still under review
- Requested manuscripts: 17.2%
- Partial: 4.7%
- Full: 12.5%
- Queries receiving personal responses: 26.6%
- Queries of novels/novellas resulting in offers: ... none yet.
- Author Gender
- Male: 2
- Female: 9
- Speculative Fiction Sub-genre
- Science Fiction: 1
- Fantasy: 9
- Primary-world fantasy (e.g. contemporary fantasy, alternate history, urban fantasy): 5
- Second-world fantasy (e.g. high fantasy): 4
- Science-Fantasy: 1
- Form
- Novel: 9
- Novella: 2 (43,000 and 44,000 words)
- Storytelling choices
- First-person present tense: 1
- Third-person present tense: 1
- First-person past tense 2
- Third-person past tense: 7
- Prologue: 1
- Audience / Target Market
- General Adult: 6
- New Adult: 2
- Young Adult: 3
Query Fail. Stats on query letters gone wrong. While #QueryFail isn't certain death for a submission should we see something worth pursuing, it does make it a whole lot harder to find that spark to pursue. We hold to the notion that a query letter should contain a "pitch" of the story (much like the paragraphs on the back cover of a paperback), some information about the story's market (YA, NA, Adult, what sub-genre of speculative fiction, word count), and maybe one or two lines about the author. This, as per our guidelines should be followed by a 5,000-word writing sample (i.e. the opening of the manuscript). We lay everything out on on Submissions page, and for the most part, everyone sends us what we ask and avoids stuff that we don't ask for.
- Query letters that didn't have a query/pitch: 2
- Submissions with a synopsis following the letter (without a pitch): 3
- Submissions with a synopsis in addition to the pitch: 2
- Submissions that did not include a 5,000-word sample, or included the wrong type of sample: 4
- Letters that referenced WWP's "other horror titles" when we don't publish horror: 1
- Letters addressed "to whom it may concern" that claimed they'd been closely following us: 1
- Letters addressed "dear sir" or "dear sir or madam": 0 -- A huge step up from years past, here! We love you!