"Personal" question(s) to John Jarrold

Zoonakaa said:
Hello all,
Long time watcher, first time poster.
I have just finished re-writing the first part of my trilogy, for the nth time, and believe it is now ready for a quality sff editor. But i'm not sure who to contact. I have already submitted my work to a few agents without any success, I even sent my work to John Jarrold, but never got a response.
From this I have gathered that I need an experienced editor to guide my novel to the next level.
Any suggestions on an someone who can help and is situated in the London area?
Any ideas on how much it would cost to edit a 500 pages book? How long it would take?

Thank you kindly for all and any responses.
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How did you submit it? He only accepts submissions by email.

Also John does editing, I would highly reccomend him. Last time I checked his website its around £500

It seems alot but bear in mind he's a top editor (self employed) and will read your book 2-3 times and do a inline edit.
 
Zoonakaa said:
Hello all,
Long time watcher, first time poster.
I have just finished re-writing the first part of my trilogy, for the nth time, and believe it is now ready for a quality sff editor. But i'm not sure who to contact. I have already submitted my work to a few agents without any success, I even sent my work to John Jarrold, but never got a response.
Click to expand...

Do you belong to a critique group? If you're not getting any success with partials, it may be that your writing just isn't quite there yet. Or it may be that what you're writing isn't an easy sell right now. Or, given that agents are individuals, your material may just not fit the tastes of the few you have queried. I've had responses ranging from real enthusiasm to bland "didn't click with me" form rejections.

Also, when you say "a few", are you just trying UK agents? You might also want to try the US, once you have honed your query-writing skills, as it's a larger, wider market with different tastes to here.

There's bound to be crit groups in London you can join, plus the British Fantasy Society has regular "open nights" at pubs in central London where you can meet people and learn more about the business of getting your work published.

I haven't had a reply from John on my partial either, but as I have another v good agent interested, I'm not going to chase him just yet.
 
What is the submission criteria and cost of submitting a manuscript to John? (i.e. 3 chapters, double-spaced 12-point font, or the full thing)

I've made several enquiries to John on the subject, but to no avail.
 
Submission guidelines are on his website. Six chapters, no synopsis, by email.

If you want to submit to agents, you need to do your research. Most agents have websites these days, so there's no excuse not to be up-to-date :)

ETA: When you say "cost", I hope you aren't under the impression that you might be paying a reading fee. No reputable agent charges to consider your work for representation, and you should avoid those that do.

Again, research - I recommend visiting Absolute Write for tons of good advice on avoiding scams and bad practice, and learning about publishing generally. SFFChronicles is great, but it doesn't focus on writing so there's inevitably less information here.
 
Hi, Zoonaka,

I wanted to pitch in my .02/2P. I've had a problem with my emails to agents going into spam folders. Most of the submission sites tell you to put your email address and your blog or website address into your query's signature, but I think that's what's causing my spam problem. I've got a new address now and I've put brackets around my @ symbols and .coms. We'll see if I fair any better. If you continue to have problems, you might consider whether you've got this problem. I've submitted to John three times without a response, so I don't think he's received them. The good news is, the book has improved with each submission. :eek:
 
Flugel Meister said:
Thanks Anne. I'd been scouring his site for a dedicated section on the matter, but there it is, on the homepage.

I presume he'll require a covering letter?
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My email to John was a cover letter of the sort one would normally include with a partial: a paragraph mentioning that we'd spoken at a convention, a one-paragraph synopsis, and my writing credits.

Now I'm wondering if my submission went into spam-land, as I included both my own web address and that of the e-publisher of the anthology I was in. Hmm, will have to try again if my current agent lead doesn't pan out...
 
Anne Lyle said:
My email to John was a cover letter of the sort one would normally include with a partial: a paragraph mentioning that we'd spoken at a convention, a one-paragraph synopsis, and my writing credits.

Now I'm wondering if my submission went into spam-land, as I included both my own web address and that of the e-publisher of the anthology I was in. Hmm, will have to try again if my current agent lead doesn't pan out...
Click to expand...

You've got me worried as well now - I wrote to John in October and haven't heard anything yet either so I've just sent him a polite nudge mail. Hopefully he's just been too busy to reply, I'd hate to think the spam monster had eaten my original query!
 
I sent John an initial query a couple of years ago, and he replied almost immediately, telling me to send on sample chapters. I sent them.

He said to nudge him in about a fortnight, which I did. No response.

Then I waited several months before nudging him again. Still no response.

A long time after that I PMed him. That didn't work either.

So it may be John's policy not to get back to you if the response is negative.

Or maybe I somehow transgressed his submission requirements and was banished.

Anyway, it's probably safe enough to say at this stage that he didn't like my sample chapters.
 
It is my firm belief that John is not one of those agents who does not reply to submissions if he is not interested
 
Everything I've seen about John indicates he's responsive whether he's interested or not, but that he is a one-man-show and gets overwhelmed by work sometimes. It's why I'm assuming my query's lost either in cyberspace or in his inbox.:)
 
Just a quick heads up to everybody who feels they have been ignored by John - he's moved house at least once over the past couple of years, and I know for a fact we had the old address listed here until recently. So if you're written to John by post, please be minded that your letter may have gone to the wrong address.

As for email submissions - there are a 101 things that can go wrong with emails - so a special degree of patience is required, and perhaps a double check you had the correct email address and then a patient follow up.

As for the chronicles PM system - everyone is strongly advised to contact people directly through whatever contact details they list in public. They are more likely to monitor their business email, and PM's really aren't the way to do it - especially when the member you're trying to contact only makes short periodic appearances.
 
In my experience of submitting to John J he is not discourteous. I had one email to him go astray - queried after I think a month and he hadn't received it.
Note that emails with large attachments can cause problems on mail servers - they can be binned before they get anywhere near John's PC. Rules vary with ISPs.

Have you set delivery status notification?

If several queries at reasonable time spacing unanswered, have you tried using a different email address to send a polite query from? If your email address gets labelled as one generating spam somewhere down the route, then all emails down that route from your address can be junked.
 
I said:
Just a quick heads up to everybody who feels they have been ignored by John - he's moved house at least once over the past couple of years, and I know for a fact we had the old address listed here until recently. So if you're written to John by post, please be minded that your letter may have gone to the wrong address.

As for email submissions - there are a 101 things that can go wrong with emails - so a special degree of patience is required, and perhaps a double check you had the correct email address and then a patient follow up.

As for the chronicles PM system - everyone is strongly advised to contact people directly through whatever contact details they list in public. They are more likely to monitor their business email, and PM's really aren't the way to do it - especially when the member you're trying to contact only makes short periodic appearances.
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Good point Byan, also John has said he only accepts email submissions. If he gets anything in the post, it goes in the bin as it doesnt conform to his submission guidelines.

Check his site out, he's very busy so be patient. If your the next big SciFi writer, I'm sure he'll be in touch!!
 
That's a good point, Montero. Maybe I'll try another e-mail address, although it's now about three years since my original query. Still, nothing to lose.
 
He was having email trouble within the last three years - one of mine was lost without trace within the last three years.
 
Hurrah, I finally got a response from John, around nine months after my original query; yet only a few weeks after my latest nudge, from a new email address. I think the problem was my email address being marked as spam.

Its not a positive response, but any response is a good response as far as I'm concerned. And after a short email exchange he has accepted to edit my manuscript!
 
Would he accept Openoffice.Writer docs? As I have trouble with Microsoft word. It seperates some paragraphs and not others. And I can not delete the space inbetween with out making an even bigger paragraph.

I'm translating over from Open office to Microsoft word.
 
Sorry for the double post. But how long should I let the time go by before sending a follow up email. I sent one on the 18th inquiring about his editing and if it would be a conflict of interest if he considered me to be a client/
 
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