September 13, 2006

Should I Submit To Anthologies?
printable version

Dear Ms. Hoy:

I would like to know what you think of writing for Chicken Soup for the Soul, A Cup of Comfort series, etc. Is writing for them worth my time and effort?

We refuse to run ads for both of them. Writers submitting stories to those outfits must do all the work ahead of time, without even knowing if their story idea is of interest to the anthology publishers or not.

If the publisher accepted queries instead of complete manuscripts, it wouldn't be such a raw deal. But, these publishers receive hundreds to thousands of submissions for each new title and only select very few for inclusion. Think of the wasted man-hours! We can't endorse that type of waste.

Your time would be better spent querying publishers that don't force writers to do all the work up front with no guarantee of a contract.

Hugs.
Ang