Q & A 40 Do editors read query letters?

The subject matter of your blog (which I really dig!) makes it clear that you receive queries and synopses directly from lowly writers. This conflicts with the urban legend that no publisher would ever look at anything that's unagented. Speaking for myself, I'd love to have an agent but none are interested. I'm sure editors at publishing houses would be equally uninterested, but until I saw your blog I figured that any such editor would reject a query without even looking at it. Was I misunderstanding this all along? And, along those lines, would a small publishing house be more likely to be receptive to something sent by a an unpublished wannabe (me)?

While it's true that Evil Editor will seek out any excuse to reject a query without even looking at it, an occasional writer fails to screw up. And while it probably seems to aspiring writers that every publisher they would like to submit to accepts manuscripts only from agents, while the publishers they couldn't care less about will buy, sight unseen, manuscripts written by plants, this is an illusion. Some publishers still read manuscripts. Whether they do or not is spelled out somewhere, probably on a web site. You may have to get your query past an unpaid college student intern who feels that anything written in English is crass, but it's not impossible.

As for whether a small press is more receptive, small presses don't get hit on by agents a whole lot, so they have to be somewhat receptive. The problem is, they don't publish a lot of books, and they don't sell a lot of books, so yours will have to outshine a high percentage of submissions, and even if it does so, you will starve. Until this new credit helps you get an agent who sells your next book for six figures. Which, Evil Editor has no doubt, is inevitable.

For a more extensive look at this issue, see "Big Press, Small Press, Short Press, Tall Press," 4/27 in this blog.