Great Writers’ Café on Wednesday – we were a select group, and I had a number of topics I’d thought of covering. In the event, one of our writers asked if anyone had any ideas for how to overcome resistance, not to writing, but to submitting.
We shared our experiences and suggestions. Here are a few.
If you really can’t face the work, or don’t have the time, try Writers’ Relief, a New Jersey company that will take your work (if they feel they can place it) and find suitable places for you to submit it. Ina explained that she had sent them a novel, which they had looked at and suggested 25 possible agents. They’d provided cover letters and Ina had replies from 14 of them – three of them very interested. Other people had submitted short fiction and had been given some editing suggestions, a final copy correctly presented, and a cover letters for around 30 literary journals to which to send the work. There are several levels of service - pick what you need. Here’s the link:
http://www.writersrelief.com/submission-guidelines-for-review-board.aspx
Jessica Bram of the Westport Writers’ workshop suggested two websites that provide lists of literary agents:
http://aaronline.org/ and http://www.agentquery.com/
Online magazines suggested included Open Salon, http://open.salon.com/cover Mused, http://www.bellaonline.com/review/submissions/ and the Good Men Project http://goodmenproject.com/. All of these take non-fiction (including some memoir) and Mused takes fiction as well.
Completely off topic – I found a funny website that re-titles famous books so that you know what to expect when you buy them. http://betterbooktitles.com/ So The Great Gatsby becomes Drink Responsibly, James and the Giant Peach becomes It’s OK If Giant Fruit Kills Your Aunts So Long As They Were Bitches, etc. The Guardian Newspaper in Britain took this and ran with it, providing a further 200 or so titles submitted by their readers. My favourite: Winnie-the-Pooh – Fat, Greedy Bear Annoys His Neighbours. Here’s that link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/apr/29/book-titles-describe-content
Happy Submitting!
Gabi Coatsworth
