(Or, How to Avoid Instant Inbox Deletion)
Hello, Substack! Intern Steve Part 2: The Stevening here. I thought it wise to follow up on the formatting post from July 24th.
Don’t judge me.1
We’re a small but mighty company. With less than a dozen employees in full-time and other statuses (including me), and the sheer volume of submissions we get (which is eye-watering and impressive), this means we can’t afford to spend too much time and too many brain bytes on the raw submissions in the “In-Container of Doom.”2
Because I’m a fellow author both published and rejected by Raconteur, I promise you that every recommendation that follows is a lesson learned from having screwed up too, so I am NOT picking on anyone or calling anyone out.
Just understand, as an intern, I’m not looking at your stories for content, and I’m not passing judgment on you as an author or person. Not my job.
My job is to get stories from the inbox to the right editor. I look at two things and two things only:
1. Is it on time? This is go/no-go criteria for those of you that speak MBA or military mission planning.
2. Is it in parameters (proper formatting and length)? Before you hit the pickle button, put the thing on the thing.
Per the Boss: length is negotiable, so I will flag the story to the editor or leadership if it’s significantly outside the 5K-8K baseline, but I still move it along. Length is not a showstopper.
But that’s it. That’s all I looked at when I read your email and downloaded your file.
Here are five tips from Intern Steve Part 2 that will help you ensure you make it past the first look (me) once you hit “Send.”
1. Do NOT leave it “up to us” which anthology your story should compete for. Pick one. If you leave it to Fate, you’re leaving it up to me, someone currently living on moldy cheese sandwiches. Which means I’m deleting the email. You’re the professional: you tell ME where the story belongs. The editor might have feedback for you, but I don’t.
2. I can’t help you with IT. I say again: you do NOT want my “help” with IT, computer OS, or word-processing tools.
Time for a little bit of salt. As an old intel pogue, I learned how to plan A-10 combat sorties on hardcopy laminated charts and operational graphics with grease pencils, Sharpies, Chartpak, Weems plotters, various sizes of coffee can lids and “combat string” to draw semi-accurate threat rings. I am the LAST person you want “helping” you with IT. If I can’t fix it with one or two keystrokes, I’m kicking it back.
3. Speaking of MS Word, my policy is to give everyone a first free pass on formatting fixes for their manuscript, now that the new template is posted. Just one.
4. NO cover letters, and by this, I mean not just actual cover letters, but cover letter content in your submission email.
Your story is your “cover letter.”
Other publishing houses require cover letters or explanatory/background content in a submission package. We don’t.
The story must speak for itself. You don’t have to sell us on your idea, or yourself. Your work does that. I know that’s not standard operating procedure in the contemporary job market, or much of contemporary publishing, but your work sells you. Your work brands you.
Your LinkedIn profile is not your work (I’m just as guilty of this).
Here’s the reality: I’m only looking at the two things I mentioned up front.
I don’t care about the story’s backstory, why you wrote it, who you are, whether it’s the continuation of a series, whether it contains a previously published character or setting. I don’t care. I’m not here to pass judgment on any of that stuff. I leave that to the editors and the Boss for their discretion.
5. Save the cover letter content for meeting us in person, a podcast, an interview, your Substack, blog, your mailing list, wherever it helps you or gives you catharsis to express it.
As someone who’s been in therapy for PTSD for the last two years, I get the need to be heard. I understand.
We’re authors. We’re artists. We can be very lacking in self-confidence and assertiveness. It may not come naturally. Therefore, let your work be that part of you for you.
From my perch, when the story has made it through me as the Door Guard and into the hands of our outstanding full-time and guest editors, now it’s time for you to be heard, and that means through your work.
Good luck! Send any gripes or hurt feelings reports to the SgtMaj; I hear he’s pretty good at wall-to-wall counseling.3
I can’t help myself—I’ve worn a uniform for almost 30 years, and I’ve both been that guy, and on the receiving end.
Ask KC Ezell or Casey Moores about why people like me don’t say “box” or “head” except under certain conditions.
Seriously, they beat me here. CALL THE POLICE.
Love a Warthog. Just sayin'.
Have you seen the content of the fellow in New Zealand who has built a very nice A10 cockpit simulator? It's mostly 3D printed and he has done some amazing work.
https://www.youtube.com/@thewarthogproject