Building Submission Lists

Not as simple as it looks!

background art by Hayden Goodman, for The Heart Never Forgets (Atheneum/S&S, 2024)

Last week I wrote about how I use Airtable to track the status of my clients' projects out on submission. Today we're going to step backwards a bit from there and look at how I decide which editors to share a submission with in the first place. This group of editors is called a submission list.

Building sub lists is a key component of an agent's job. We all probably have slightly different workflows, so note that what works for me is only one way of building sub lists. Your agent might do it differently. That's cool. There are many different paths to a great sub list.

What I do is compile a big list of names in a primordial soup of ideas – sometimes over the course of weeks or even months, depending on how long it takes to get a project ready for submission (and how early I start jotting down editor ideas). Then when we are just about ready to send out a project, I whittle down all those ideas into a submission list of around 10-15 editors.

Sounds straightforward, but submission lists can be complex and agents puts a lot of thought into coming up with that relatively short list of names. Here's more detail on how I personally do it!

ADDING EDITORS TO THE SOUP OF IDEAS

Interest in the creator's work

I always start sub list planning with editors who have expressed a specific interest in the author or illustrator's work. This includes editors the creator has worked with on other books; editors who passed on their previous submissions but had positive feedback; and editors who have let me know that they're a fan of the illustrator's art style.

Sometimes these editors skip the primordial soup of ideas stage and go straight on the submission list – for example, I'll almost certainly share a creator's new project with the editors they've worked with before on other books.

Top of mind editors and imprints

Next, I'll add editors who immediately come to my mind for the project. The better I know the editor, the more likely they're going to live in the "RAM" of my brain. Getting to know editors via calls, lunches, or working together on other books helps me get a good download on their personality and tastes. Occasionally I'll have such a strong feeling that an editor might love a particular project that I'll put them straight on the submission list as well.

Sometimes a project feels like it might suit a particular imprint or house that has a distinct personality or a very clear stated mission for the types of books it publishes, and I'll look for the right editor to submit to there. I'll choose based on a combination of reviewing notes I have about each editor's wishlist and studying the imprint's recent deals and key titles. If multiple editors seem like they could be a good fit, I'll add them all in the ideas phase and then narrow it down to one person later – but imprints with distinct personalities tend to have small teams!

Wait a minute, how do you actually determine which editors feel right for each project?

This is really how the sausage gets made! Sometimes I can't fully articulate why I think a certain editor might like a certain project, it's just a gut feeling.  My clients might see notes like "I think she'll love this!" in my inclusion rationale field. Other times there's a clear thread I can follow. For example, if I know an editor's a fan of one of my clients, I may have a hunch that she'll also like another client's style that has a similar sensibility. Sometimes it's straightforward like-for-like: an editor told me she loves mermaids and this is a mermaid book.

More often, it's several clues that I stitch together. Something an editor mentions in their wishlist ("I'm looking for funny, commercial picture books with no message"), plus a comment they made when passing on another project ("I love rhyming books"), plus insights I gleaned from looking at other books they've acquired (a pattern of unique art styles with great characters).

Creator preferences

After I run through all the editors and imprints that are top of mind for me, I also check my notes to see if there are any particular editors and/or imprints my client has told me that they'd love to work with. I don't automatically add these to the submission list, but I definitely do put them into the idea pot.¹

Comp titles

I like to check which editors acquired titles I'm comping to and consider whether they might be a good fit for the project I'm taking out. This can be hit or miss; it depends on what type of DNA the project on submission shares with the comp title. If there's a lot of overlap, the editor may not be interested in the submission because they've already worked on a similar book. However, if what the two books share is more of a vibe – such as a similar type of humor or tone – but the stories are quite different, then the editor of one could be a good match for both.

Submission lists for similar projects

If I've worked on submissions in the past that are in the same genre or share other characteristics with the project I'm about to take out, I'll reference those sub lists to get ideas. I'll check for editors who shared positive feedback on the older project and whom I might want to try again with the new submission. For example, if an editor passed on a funny picture book but said "I loved the humor in this" I might want to add them to the idea pool for another picture book with a lot of humor.

Filling in the gaps

At this point, I'll have a hearty idea soup brewing. My last step is to systematically go through my editor database and fill in any gaps. Do I have ideas down from all the major and mid-size publishers? Did I miss any small/indie presses who might be a good fit? Should I think about Canada or the UK/ANZ for this sub?

WHITTLING IDEAS DOWN TO THE SUBMISSION LIST

Once I've got all my "maybes" gathered together, I find it easier to suss out which editor ideas feel the most promising and actually start putting together the sub list.

This stage is a bit of a puzzle, however. A sub list is not only formed of the editors I think are most likely to love a project; those editors also need to be spread across different imprints/publishing houses, and there is an unwritten rule to not "double up" on submissions with one editor. So I need to check whether an editor I want to include on a sub list is already considering another submission, and potentially wait until she closes that out to send her something else.²

I often whittle down submission lists for multiple projects at a time so I can weigh any overlapping ideas against each other. For example, if an editor is on my idea list for two projects, I'll think about which project that editor is more likely to love and include her in the initial round for that one. I'll add the editor to the rolling list for the other project with a note not to submit until the first project is closed out.³

In most cases, agents can only submit to one editor at an imprint; a pass from that editor is considered a pass from the entire imprint. So if I have multiple editor ideas at the same imprint, I have to choose only one person to submit to.

Hopefully one editor will stand out as the right fit after a deeper dive into their wishlist and other acquisitions. But if it still feels like a draw, I'll consider some practical factors – like other projects I'll be submitting around the same time as I described above, or how reliable that editor has been with sending me feedback on past submissions. If an editor has ghosted me on the last few projects I've sent her and I think one of her colleagues might be just as likely to click with a project, I'll try her colleague.

I usually aim for the initial submission list (i.e. the first group of editors I'll submit a project to all at once) to be around 10 editors. Sometimes I'll include a few more if I have lots of really promising ideas or if I think a submission might get a lot of interest quickly. As passes come in, I refer to my broader idea list to potentially trickle out the submission to new editors.

Whew, I thought this would be a short post for some reason. But there is quite a lot to consider when building submission lists. (And maybe the reason I think of it as "building" a list makes more sense now too!)

Next week we're going to change gears and chat with my fabulous client Hayden Goodman about her new book, The Heart Never Forgets. But after that, I'll be returning to submission lists with another Airtable post. We'll zoom in on some other corners of my submission tracking base to look at how my "wide" set-up helps me quickly add editor ideas to submission lists from different views, and get a birds' eye view of the sub list "puzzle" across multiple projects.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

1. I usually share submission lists with my clients right before I send their project out, so they can see who I've landed on and why and share any additional ideas with me. We'll discuss together and decide on a final list we're both excited about.

2. My Airtable set-up helps me out a lot with sorting this submission list puzzle, but I'll get into that in my next Airtable Tips post.

3. Sometimes I really want to submit multiple projects to the same editor, and the subs happen to be ready to go out at the same time. When this happens, I just share both. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  The rule not to double up on subs is actually more of a guideline…