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Screened Book Proposals for Publishers
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Current Reports  The monthly mailed reports are available to our client publishers and to writers who have had their proposals accepted in the past year. For the PDF file to be emailed to you, click here.


For new users of The Writer's Edge service, we still offer a sample PDF file of an older report to help them visualize what publishers receive by mail. You should understand that these reports are shaped and formatted for the publishers, not for the general public. See the Frequently Asked Questions section on this site for more information about the summary components. If you are a current customer of The Writer's Edge looking up your own entry, you will find it in the Book Bank if it has already appeared for the current period.

The following reports are examples from typical months of Writer's Edge manuscript screening. These PDF files are replicas of the mailed report to our publishers. Review these samples to study the tone and content we seek in your Book Information Form. Also see the flowchart of the entire Writer's Edge process.

 

       
Example 1
See what a typical monthly report looks like and understand better the concept of our communication to publishers.		  

Example 2
Use these examples for preparing your own summaries

 
     


Expected to see your entry in this month's Book Bank or report and it's not there? There may be a simple reason. Click here.

Advice to Writers

If you expected your book in the latest report and it's not there, it may have missed the cutoff date for this month. Our processing of the batch of submissions (usually between 30 and 60 items) takes about ten days. This means you may have heard favorably about your book but the report was already in preparation and will have to wait until next month.

If you have a book proposal listed and . . . if you hear from a publisher . . .

They will usually want to see your entire manuscript or will ask for a proposal, including a table of contents and sample chapters. The Writer’s Edge does not send your materials to publishers. It counts on the summary in the report to satisfy the initial interest of its list of publishers.

If you hear from more than one publisher . . .
You can feel free to send your manuscript to more than one but courtesy requires that you inform them that more than one publisher is examining the proposal. This is called “simultaneous submission” and assumes no exclusive option has been entered for your work.

You will likely hear from subsidy publishers (they will publish your book if you pay them) since they view our web pages and seek customers there. You can view our opinions in the Frequently Asked Questions page of this site. The quick summary of our view is that your first choice will always be a publisher that pays royalties (i.e., one that pays you, not the reverse). But you may want to go the subsidy route in your situation.

 

 

If you receive a contract . . .

Congratulations. Tell The Writer’s Edge the name of the company and the editor you are working with. We will put a picture of your published book and include your success on our "My Experiences" page.

If you hear from no publisher or agent . .  .

Your proposal may face significant competition from similar proposals (especially fiction) or it may appear to appeal to a target market too small for most commercial publishers. You can still approach companies on your own (see the Literary Marketplace or the Christian Writer’s Market Guide for addresses). Or you can revise and rewrite your material to broaden its appeal. If you resubmit to The Writer’s Edge, which requires a normal submission fee, you should wait 6-9 months and make enough significant changes that your chances are improved.

Thank you for participating in The Writer’s Edge service. If you wish to submit  another manuscript, we look forward to serving you again. And add your experience, positive or not,  in placing your manuscript with a publisher to our page on this site: "My Experience . . ." Help other writers understand what's normal!

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New feature: We now have a provision to repeat your entry in the monthly paper reports to the publishers. If you have made changes or feel your book proposal has good reason for a fresh consideration by the editors, you may wish to re-enter your submission into our monthly mailing. There is a modest fee and some limitations that are explained on the Repeat page.   

 

 

Your entry is not in this month's report and you wonder why. Here are the possibilities:

1. Did you hear first from a reviewer, indicating your submission has been accepted? That is the sequence of communication. The reviewer tells the writer what is happening with the manuscript first. Then the manuscript is placed in the queue for the next available month. If you have not heard anything from the review process, your manuscript would not turn up in a report. About half or 65% of the submissions are currently being accepted for a report.

2. When did you hear your manuscript was accepted? The cutoff for any month is about the 15th day. Your accepted manuscript may have missed that cutoff date. If you hear from your reviewer on the 10th of the month or later, it may miss that month's cutoff. Then it will land in the report for the next month. Since we are using reviewers in several cities, the flow of material to our report process will not usually be same-day.

3. Did you ask that your entry not be included in our web site exposure? The Book Information Form gives you a chance to opt out of the web display (this does not affect our paper report for the publishers). If you did opt out, we omitted your book proposal in this web display.

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