How do publishers select manuscripts?Besides traditional submissions, Utsudo has encountered: a three-round review system (you have to pass three stages to be accepted), selection by the assigned editor, being discovered online by an editor, publishers sending invitations by letter, majority votes among several editors, invitations via fellow authors, and literary publishers who value the “author” rather than the “work.”

Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

How publishers select manuscripts, through the eyes of the selected

　　Although I’m not a manuscript selector at a publisher, asa writer who gets selected (?), I’ve worked with or talked to several publishers, so I still have some things to share.

　　In the light novel field, besides the most traditional “submission” route (I’ll talk about that separately another time), I’ve encountered the following types:

Three-round review and editor selection

1. Three-round review

　　There are three layers of review, and you have topass all three stagesto be accepted~

　　But I’ve also passed the first stage, then gone back and forth on revisions many times, only to be cut at the second stage at most — so it’s actually pretty strict QQ

　　I’ve also had one of these pass on the first try — though at a different publisher.

2. Selection by the assigned editor

　　As the name suggests, whether a manuscript is accepted depends on the assigned editor’s decision. I imagine they still need to write a proposal or persuade the higher-ups to use it, but that’s not my job, so I won’t dig into it.

　　With this type, you can more easily develop a comrades-in-arms relationship with your editor. The work is basically a creation of you and your editor — you’re just the one holding the pen. Sometimes the final work surprises even you, since another partner was involved. As for whether it gets better or worse… that depends on the editor’s skill (?

　　But with another professional keeping watch, the odds of the work getting a good response usually go up quite a bit.

Online discovery and invitations by letter

3. Online discovery

　　When you post your work online and it gets a good response, with a solid plot structure and so on, an editor scouting online may notice it and invite you to publish or submit for review (since some works aren’t fully free to read, they need the full text to judge).

　　It happened to me once — didn’t get accepted, sob. Though I later submitted it elsewhere and it was published.

4. Invitations by letter

　　The concept of a letter suddenly flying in and smacking you in the face (X

　　A publisher you’ve never worked with sends an invitation, hoping to discuss working together.

　　Presumably they already have a type of book they want to publish, observe works on the market, and write to authors who’ve published similar works. By the way, they apparently discovered me at a campus book fair.

Majority votes, peer invitations and a stroke of good karma

5. Majority vote

　　This was the first time I’d heard of it — very interesting XD

　　It seems a group of editors or publishing staff read the work and then vote on whether to accept it. As for details like the minimum number of votes, I don’t know.

6. Invitations via fellow authors

　　Because the publisher an author worked with wanted to recruit more widely, they extended invitations to other authors through him. But he was only responsible for inviting and collecting manuscripts and passing them to the editorial team; the editorial team decided whether to accept them — he was just the bridge between both sides.

7. A stroke of good karma (?

　　Posting writing online, somewhat like being discovered in item 3 — but perhaps because it was a literary publisher, what they valued wasthe “author,” not the “work”, so what they wanted wasn’t a “sellable” work, but a work that “represents that author.”

　　That must be an SSR — maybe something you encounter only once in a lifetime.

　　Those are the ones I’ve encountered (that I can think of). How many have you encountered?

　　Or if there are other types, feel free to share XD

FAQ

Further reading (in Chinese)

• Previous: #60 (in Chinese)
• Next: #62 (in Chinese)
• Start from the beginning: #01 — Utsudo’s debut
• Column introduction
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.

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