When Is my Manuscript Ready for Submission?

Ah, the writing process: rain pattering outside. A warm mug of freshly brewed something-or-other. The clickety-clack of an IBM Selectric. And thou.

You're living the dream.

Except you're not—because you literally have no idea if your book is ready, if it ever will be, or how many times you literally overused the word literally (especially in dialogue).

Writing is hard. And not just because you have to kill your darlings.

Is This About Word Count?

You don't need to stress about your word count. Not right now.

We once edited a 500,000-word rough draft of a war memoir. We got it down to about 120,000 by the time it was shipped (mainly because of DoD redactions we can't talk about—seriously). On the other side of things, we've edited fiction that grew by a few thousand words in the editing process.

The point is, definitely set goals, but you'll do best if you hold this thing loosely.

Is This About Spelling and Grammar?

Heck no! What do you think we're here for?

Okay, wait. Don't just phone it in with some half-a-burro's worth of effort (see what we did there?). We do want you to upload your best effort, but offload the stress because ain't nobody got time for that.

(Also, stress doesn't upload.)

Is This About a Great Story?

Now we're getting somewhere.

Since we're passionate advocates for storybuilding, we love a great story. We not only love them, we understand how they're built and what they need to be awesome.

If yours isn't quite as tight as a ready-to-pounce jungle cat, no worries. That's part of what we do. And we love doing it.

So, What's It About?

Readiness is about you giving this your best effort. Done is better than perfect. You've got to get started if you want to finish.

If you haven't yet, check out our submission guidelines so you can set yourself up for a successful submission.

We're looking forward to it!