Editor Interview: Tiny Fox Press

Stories that grab you

A handful in no particular order because each one is fantastic: Christopher Moore, Douglas Adams, Nicky Drayden, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss, Max Barry, R. A. Salvatore, Raymond E. Feist

We're small and each one of us is personally invested in every author and every project at all times. We can't compete with huge budgets that the big publishers have, but all our authors will have our attention and dedication pre and post launch. I'm biased, yes, but I think our logo is pretty spiffy, too.

Submit your best. This almost always means when you're finally sick of the text and don't want to look at it any longer, and this definitely means other people need to read and critique your work who aren't immediate friends and family. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have people close to you encourage your writing and say wonderful things about your story. Everyone needs the support. But said people won't offer those biting critiques if something doesn't work.
That said, once your text is ready, please read our submission guidelines and adhere to them (this also means submitting when we are open to queries, too).

The ideal submission adheres to our guidelines. It's that simple when it comes to the technical aspect. As far as the sample pages go, I'm going to sound like every other editor and agent out there: I need a fantastic hook in those first few pages. Even though we're small, we get a lot of submissions, and decent and good isn't good enough, sadly. There's a variety of ways to get a good hook: an excellent voice, an incredibly unique set up (waking up in bed is NOT one of them), characters I can relate to and love (or love to hate) are fantastic. Conflict, or the immediate potential for conflict, needs to be there, too. "The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide To Staying Out of the Rejection Pile" by Noah Lukeman is a great place to start if an aspiring writer needs help in that arena.

On the basic level, bad submissions either pitch us something we don't do in terms of genre or attach pages--basically the sub isn't following our guidelines. Some even submit to us when we are clearly closed, and thus they either really didn't read our submission page or don't care that we're closed. Either way is a turn off. I will put a little mark here and say, however, that we do welcome submissions when closed if we've specifically requested the query, such as at a Twitter event or some other contact.
When it comes to the sample pages, lack of a hook results in a pass the most. Thankfully, most queries aren't typo-ridden messes. Too cliche openings, or scenes I've seen a hundred times already are most common. Second to that would be a voice that's too flat or boring. Third would probably be too much narration / set up. Tell me only what I need to know for that opening scene and nothing else and get things moving. Backstory, motivation, world building, etc. can come out later. It's a hard line to walk, sometimes, but it's what really does it for me when the author nails it.

Solid pub cred never hurts, of course, but every fantastic, well-known author has that first book, and we're more than happy to give a chance to anyone who writes in our genres to have a debut novel published with us.

Assuming I'm looking at something beyond the query (which we look at up to the first 10 pages) and I've requested the full, I can usually make a call within 25-50 pages. I figure if I'm not loving everything by then, it needs work. Less frequently, I'll get to the end of the book and realize it's close, but not quite there for whatever reason. Most of the time its because the ending felt rushed, and a fantastic, satisfying ending is just as important as a well-written beginning that grabs the reader right away.

At least three of the four of us will read the text from start to finish and we'll all need to agree it's something we must have for us to send an acceptance letter to the author. We'll also do some basic Google-fu on the author just to make sure we feel comfortable working with him or her (and we're really just screening for huge red flags that would make any employer run for the hills).

Open email. Chat with current authors. Chat with publicist. Chat with community connections, reviewers, bloggers, or anyone else that might currently (or will be soon) working on one of our titles. Tackle the slush pile. Get excited about a concept. Get sad about the sample pages that don't work. Get excited about a concept that works and an opener, too. Send off replies. Remind myself I've got requested material to look at. Depending how backlogged said pile of material is, start going through it. Wonder if I'm missing something amazing or said material just isn't there. Remind myself previous authors we took on had texts that I couldn't walk away from. Somewhere in all of that, wander around a bit, drink caffeine, play a few quick games to let my brain rest, and wonder when I'm going to get to my fun reading list.

The less we have to do, the better. There seems to be a huge correlation between how good the story is and how good the state of the manuscript is in in terms of no typos, grammar mistakes, etc. That said, we will comb over the entire text multiple times to really make sure it's pristine. On a similar note, the less developmental editing needed, the better. That said, we do work closely with our authors to say, "Hey, this is really great, but how about addressing/adding/changing XYZ to make it even better?" When we make such suggestions, we give good reason for the change and we'll work closely with the author to ensure that its handled how the author wants--and maybe said author can build on our suggestions to come up with an even grander idea.
If the text needs, say, the last third rewritten in our opinion, we'd likely just send a "revise and resend." However, if the majority of the text was fantastic, but say, a big plot twist could've been handled better (or just fell flat), and maybe a few other points here and there needed smoothing out, we'd work closely with the author to really get it it all to work.