Frequently Asked Questions

Editing

Publishers certainly edit. In fact, we edit a great deal, but this doesn't relieve authors of the obligation to prepare their manuscripts. Authors face heavy competition, and expecting publishers to look through bad spelling, grammar, syntax, and developmental style to see a "diamond in the rough" is asking a lot of us. Your manuscript is competing with 20 million more for about 200,000 trade published titles each year, which makes preparation very important.

Take the time to have your manuscript edited. This doesn't mean you need to hire a professional editor. In fact, you'd be surprised how many of these problems can be fixed by running your word processor's spell checking and grammar checking features (don't depend on the program's while-you-type features!). But, one of the best solutions is for you to find 4–10 readers to review your book. Ask them to mark any editorial problems in the manuscript. At the same time, have them identify sections of the manuscript that thrilled them, and those that bored them. Have them identify sections that confused them. This is invaluable information when preparing your manuscript for publishers.

Readers

The belief that everyone will like a book simply isn't true, and expressing this belief to publishers is a sure way to tell us that you haven't done your homework. This is a little blunt, but it isn't your publisher's job to find a market for your book — that's a solution in search of a problem. You should have identified your primary audience before you started writing. And you should have tested your book with your primary audience before submitting it for publication.

When you think about it, the reason everybody won't like your book becomes obvious. Some people like westerns, others romance, others sci-fi, while others don't like fiction and prefer political commentary, biographies, or military history. Six-year-olds don't read political commentary and most senior citizens will only read picture books to their grandchildren. Your book is likely to have only one shot at success, so proving it with your target audience before publication is very important.

Under "Editing" we suggested having 4–10 people read your book. Let's build on this. Go to your public library and ask the librarians if you can hang a poster or notice requesting the help of readers. You'll be surprised how many people enjoy doing this. Be sure to list the kind of book (be as specific as possible) and when you'll need it back. Also tell them that you'll need a book report, then prepare a sheet of questions (specific and general) for them to answer.

This process can be very simple or very involved, but the feedback is invaluable. Some people will love your book, others will hate it. That's OK! Use their comments to improve your book and make it more appealing to your audience. (And use their comments as endorsements when you submit to a publisher!). One final word, don't ask family or friends to do this. You need strangers—people who won't hold back to protect your feelings. Readers' answers and comments need to be as honest and complete as possible.

Genre

One of the most frequent problems we run into is an incomplete subject or genre. Genre is one way of generally identifying your target audience. A general genre (e.g., "Juvenile Fiction") is a quick way to a rejection because it's much too general and we can't take the time to figure out what your book's genre should be. Publishers use the book's genre to determine the book's competition (all books have competition) and to ascertain its marketability.

Authors should use the Book Industry Study Group's BISAC Subject Headings to recommend a specific genre.

Review Feedback

We regret that we cannot provide feedback or reviewer's comments about your manuscript due to the volume of projects we review.

Completed Manuscripts

Generally, you need not have a completed manuscript to submit a project proposal. If you manuscript is not complete, you must tell us, and provide either an estimated completion date or an estimate of the time needed to complete the project if selected for publication. Note that it is common for fiction manuscripts to be complete before submission to a publisher.

Unsolicited Manuscripts

There is nothing stopping you from submitting a completed manuscript, but you should understand what we do with submissions. Few if any publishers have the man-power to entirely read every manuscript. We occasionally hear authors complain that if we'd just read to the end of the book, we'd know how great it is. If you think about it, this is a tacit admission that the book isn't ready for publication. Consumers in bookstores will not read through an entire book before deciding whether or not to buy it, nor will we read entire books when deciding which manuscripts make the first cut.

Publishers vet submissions in basically three steps. First, a rapid review (3–6 minutes) to see if the book meets our needs. (Poor spelling or a badly written cover letter counts against you heavily at this time.) 85%-90% of all manuscripts fail to pass this first step. Next is a project-level review. We read sample chapters (either those provided or the first 3–4 chapters of a manuscript). At this stage we're looking for quality of writing and consumer engagement (whether or not the first chapter or two captures the consumer's interest.) The final step is a full manuscript review.

Less than 5% of all submissions make it to the last review step. If you prefer to submit hard copy, we recommend submitting only sample chapters unless we request the manuscript. If you prefer to submit the entire manuscript, we strongly recommend submitting the project online.

Advances & Royalties

Advances are a pre-payment to authors based on the expected sales of a published book. Mapletree Publishing does not offer advances at this time. Instead, we generally offers royalties of 15% of the net sale (the specific royalty may change based on the type of book, our needs at the time, and other contractual factors).

Contract Availability

It is not the policy of Mapletree Publishing to provide a copy of its Publishing Agreement to any author until we have reviewed the author's work and made a final decision to publish. At that time a proposal for publication, including a copy of the Publishing Agreement, will be provided.

Simultaneous Submissions

Authors are welcome and encouraged to simultaneously submit manuscripts to Mapletree Publishing and other publishers. When submitting simultaneously you agree in good faith to expeditiously inform Mapletree should another publishing company accept the work before our review is complete.

Pen Names

Pen names are traditionally used to protect the identity of the author in the case of a controversial subject, or to re-cast the author in the case of a genre that requires a persona other than the author (examples: a man writing romance might want a female pen name, or the author of children's books may want to create a brandable persona). Generally, Pen names make promotion difficult. Pen names are therefore strongly discouraged without a compelling reason.

Pen names must never be used when submitting manuscripts.

Formatting for Typesetting

Typesetting is the very detail-oriented process of presenting your manuscript to consumers—and it's a more complicated process than many first-time authors realize. Authors should worry more about the message than the presentation. The temptation is to believe that these are inseperable. But publishers will judge your manuscript without considering the presentation (in fact, too much decorative formatting will count against you!). Generally, authors should avoid formatting as much as possible in their manuscripts other than italics and the use of bold text to identify headers. Whenever possible, use paragraph and character styles in your word processors rather than making direct changes to the text. Common examples of typesetting headaches are using tabs or spaces to indent paragraphs (these must be removed during typesetting) and using ALL CAPS for chapter headers (these must be re-cast as title caps during typesetting). Tabs and spaces used to create horizontal alignment are especially problematic when used to indent outline-list text. Authors should also be sure to use double-spaces to separate sentences as these will be replaced with en-spaces during typesetting.