Friday, September 23, 2011

Open for Submissions

Get ready . . . get set . . . submit!

On October 1st, we will re-open to submissions. So get ready to send in your queries for new projects. Remember, we want email queries only. But take a minute first to check out the revised submission guidelines on our website, www.elaineenglish.com.

We’re limiting the kinds of works we’re going to represent going forward, so don’t assume that everything you’ve written we’re interested in seeing. We’re going to concentrate on romance, women’s fiction, and cozy mysteries only. For romance, we’re open to all the various subgenres from historical to contemporary, sweet to erotic, romantic suspense, paranormal, steam punk, and urban fantasy, just to name a few. The only exceptions are: we handle very little inspirational romance and if you write time- travel, your burden will be a bit harder, because we’re real skeptics. Cozy mysteries are those entertaining, relatively low-violence, who- done-it stories, typically featuring an amateur sleuth.

Women’s fiction is a bit harder to define, but I know it when I see it. It’s fiction about women and intended primarily for women readers of all ages. It’s often about relationships – mothers and children, families, even generations. It shows women discovering and taking up their place in the world. It can be set in historical, contemporary or futurist times, but the focus, and generally, the point of view of the story, is that of a woman.

Taking time off from submissions has given me a clearer perspective and helped me to focus on what’s really important. It also gave the agency a chance to completely catch up on submissions (can you imagine!) and to overcome the burn-out which seems to be an occupational hazard in this business. So reinvigorated, here we go. Send us your pitch and together let’s find the next great bestseller!