I went to a seminar on the right to publish at the London College of Communication yesterday. There was a panel on publishing new writers. Maggie Hamand of Maia Press was on it, and I thought she was very good. She's a novelist first, then publisher, and very committed to quality writing. Believes what gets published shouldn't be determined by commercial factors. They're running a competition to find an undergraduate writer at the moment, but I think it's worth checking out their website in general.

http://www.waiapress.com

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Why am I such an idiot? http://www.maiapress.com - this might work better.

Also check out the WW interview with the publishers- http://www.writewords.org.uk/interviews/maia_press.asp
Maggie is full of common sense and good advice, and Maia have just recently won a major award for one of their novels.

Yeah fair enough, but she only considers hard copies of manuscripts which is very old fashioned especially when most editors are happy with email submissions.

Ah, I didn't realise you'd already interviewed them, Anna, because I was going to suggest it!

most editors are happy with email submissions.

Not sure where you got this from but, in my experience, most will only accept hardcopy. They tend to claim it’s because of the cost of printing it, so I’d be interested to know how many are happy with email subs.

Dee

Ditto, what Dee said. I don't know of many who'll accept a submission by email. Be interested to know who will though...

Nik.

Oh well, I may as well say it: Macmillan New Writing accept submissions by email, in fact I think that's the only way you can submit.

That’s a move in the right direction, Roger. Let’s hope more of them follow suit. The paper mountain created in this business is massive, but it’s not just that. With all the technology available to us, to be forced to revert to snail mail to get our work in front of an agent or publisher seems almost archaic.

Dee

It really is ridiculous, isn't it. However, the world has come around to the uses and attractions of the internet at gathering speed since its early days and I can't believe this part of it won't catch up eventually.
I do everything online that I possibly can and felt quite bewildered when I began submitting stories this year to find that I had to look out envelopes, print out paper copies, worry about weight and how many stamps to stick on, make a trip to the PO, and gasp! actually sign my name on the covering letter with a rusty old signature I hardly ever use these days. And then you know your story might take 48 hours to arrive when you could have zinged it off with one click. Goodness me, I could have amassed rejections at ten times the rate that way! very unfair.

Ironically I've had, however, to apply for my WW full membership by post, since the only online option is PayPal which I've stopped using since I reached their £2000 limit (after which they demand a direct debit option on your current account which I'm not very happy about giving them.) Wish there was a simple credit-card option to pay.

I know, it seems daft that so most agents and publishers don't accept email submissions, but the reasons I've gathered are usually an assortment of the following:

you can't read email submissions in the bath, on the bus, in bed, which is where agents and editors do it; the one place they never have time to read submissions at is in front of their computer

you can't scribble on the margin of an email submission

you can't stick it through a photocopier to hand out at a meeting so that everyone else can do the above

printing things out is a pain - how often have you sworn at your printer? - as well as expensive. The average submission of sample chapters gets about 90 seconds of reading, so they're not going to spend 5 minutes printing out each of the 400 submissions they get a week

it's easier to forget about an email submission in the depths of your inbox than it is to lose a wodge of ms (though they do that too, of course)

it's too easy for aspiring writers to do mass submissions of totally unsuitable work by email (and believe me, they do), so the fact that a writer has to assemble all the bits and stamps and pay for the submission makes them concentrate a bit harder on whether it's worth sending.

Getting the submission right and in the post and stamped and addressed and self-addressed is a bore, but maybe one should think of it as a sign to an editor of one's seriousness

Good article here:

From Post Box To Agency Inbox:
An Insider Look At How An Agent Reads and Evaluates The Requested Sample Pages For Your Novel

which does what it says on the tin. And a list here

Agents That Accept Email Queries

of US agents who nonetheless accept email enquiries. Bookspace seems to be a good site all round, in fact.

Emma

Those look really interesting Emma - thanks, will read them after the Sunday lunch is on the table.

I was thinking after I made my post that I had been too dismissive of paper copies - yes, in fact it's nice to see one's work printed out - sometimes you can judge it better than on a PC screen - and also I prefer to think of an editor reading it first from a paper copy looking as nice and as professional as I can get it, rather than on her screen. Having said that, the editor who's looking at my pony-mum memoirs did ask for the balance of it to be sent by email. Which I did - then immediately imagined it roaming lost in cyberspace, doomed to wander there forever. There is something very magical about words vaanishing off your screen and flashing up an instant later on someone else's and I have these lapses in trust.

Yes, I'm not sure I really believe that emails get there either. I get much twitchier if I email and don't get some kind of acknowledgement back, than if I send a letter, when I just assume it arrived.

I also want to control exactly how my MS looks, which you can't if it's email. I'm very reluctant to enter competitions for the same reason unless I can send hard copy.

Emma

I suppose years of living in Halifax have made me deeply suspicious of the postal service.

And yes, Emma, you're right that we have more control over the appearance of our work when we send a printed version… it’s just, like Merry says, finding an envelope/stamps/an address… I've never been good at letter-writing, but I love corresponding by email.

Good point about them scribbling notes in the margins, although when I was punting stuff out to agents I searched in vain for any tiny hint in everything that came back.

Dee

when I was punting stuff out to agents I searched in vain for any tiny hint in everything that came back

I know. It's the next stage they're thinking about. I suppose you can think, 'Oh, good, they're so hopeful that what I'm about to send them will need going over in detail, that they want to make sure they'll be able to'. Or something like that!

Emma

Thanks for the article link Emma D. I'm very new to all this and it was interesting to read something so informative and yet passionate.