Revisions 2

Okay, here's another situation that came from revision requests, and I want to stress the author (and I :) were polite at every juncture.

I got a submission that wasn't really erotica, more like sexy science fiction, and I returned it with some suggestions about how this could be more appropriate for us. Author came back with a revised manuscript. It still was more sexy science fiction-- which is fine, but we publish erotica, and I did assume that, since she had submitted to us, she was okay with making this erotica. I made some more suggestions, got another version, but there was still too much Other Stuff, just right for a s/f story, but detracting from the romantic/erotic story. One of the major issues (I'm shifting some details here) was the title, which was based around "Stars," which might be great in a s/f title, but not so much for us.

Anyway, made some suggestions, including changing the title. Now I was figuring that we'd take this story if the final issues could be dealt with, though I didn't say that out-- I don't offer a contract until I really mean it. :) Author said she couldn't make these final changes as they made the story something other than she wanted it to be-- the title was a big part of that-- and withdrew it. No hard feelings, etc. The emphasis I wanted wasn't what she wanted.

And she was right. But so was I. Why? Because she had submitted to us, and we have a publishing focus, and I assumed that she was okay with our publishing focus, that she wanted to publish with us, because she submitted to us.

If you don't want to do a round of revisions, if you have aspects of your story that you want to keep but are somewhat in conflict with what an editor publishes, you'll save yourself and the editor a lot of time if you decide that before you submit. It is not crazy for me to assume that, if you submit to my house, you want to be published by this house. And there really are genre differences that if you submit to me, and I think your story can work with our focus, I will suggest changing.

For instance, we publish a lot of speculative fiction-- sf and paranormal. But it's erotica too, or primarily. Lots of sf romance can be modified or intensified to work for us, and when we get a story like that, we suggest the revisions which will make it more right for us. (No, we are not going to publish something wonderful but not right for us. That's reality.) It is not an intrusion on author authority to suggest the changes that will make the story more erotica and less standard sf.

I was at a conference once, on a panel about Beginnings, and I made a big point that I didn't want three chapters of worldbuilding before the romance gets going, that the setting information should be developed in with the story. A science fiction editor was also on the panel, and she laughed and said she DID want three chapters of worldbuilding, because that's what her readers were looking for.

If you want to have three chapters of worldbuilding, you should submit to her, and not to me. :)

Not that there's anything wrong with that type of story. But you're the one who is choosing the publishers you're submitting to-- and if you submit to us, we assume that you're accepting that we publish XYZ, and that you want XYZ in your story if that's what we publish. If you don't want XYZ in your story, you really shouldn't be submitting to us.

We publish a lot of novellas, and sometimes I think that everyone who has a novella of any kind just does a global search for "novella publishers" and sends it to all of them. If it's clearly inappropriate, I never even see it. The problem comes when we get a novella submission that is romantic in focus, that is, often rather easily intensified to erotica. Then, yeah, I'm going to make the suggestions to bring the story closer to what we publish. That is not taking over your story. That's not making it wrong for other publishers (you did keep a copy of the original, didn't you? If not, it's really not my fault :). It's seeing if it can be right for us.

This is why it's absolutely essential for the sake of your own stress level (and mine :) that you research the market before you submit. If this publisher doesn't publish stories like yours-- and especially if it publishes stories sort of but not exactly like yours (sf romance, but not straight sf, say)-- think before you submit about whether you are going to be willing to change this story that much. If not-- don't submit there. They are NOT going to change what they publish just for you.

Of course, we seldom know what we value until we contemplate not having it. So it's understandable that you might submit something somewhere and only later realize that you don't want to change the story so much. Just remember-- you're in control here, of yourself, your story, and your decisions. No one can take that away from you. But that also means that you're the one with all the responsibility to make the right choices for your own work.

Alicia