by Tawn Taylor New authors are often looking for that "magic formula", a surefire way to land that first deal. The bad news: I haven't discovered that yet. But I do have a little bit of good news. I have discovered a few surefire ways to NOT get published. A few chuckles, followed by some thought-provoking truths (I hope): 25. Demand no less than a six-figure advance in your query letter. Your book is brilliant and if Big Publishing House isn't willing to pay, then there's no need to submit a single page.

24. Ask friends/critique partners or fellow authors for feedback on your project, and then dismiss their concerns. Everyone is wrong! Head-hopping is okay. Plenty of authors do it. And who cares if you start every paragraph with the same word ("Then...")? That's the way you want it. Your baby is perfect and if they can't see that, then they're blind.

23. Let the editor know how desperate you are to sell to her by including phrases like the following in your query: "I'll do anything", "If you don't buy it, I'll commit suicide" or the ever popular, "My kids need shoes/medicine/an operation".

22. Tweak a few words of your rejected masterpiece and resubmit it to the same editor/publisher over, and over, and over until she's so annoyed she HAS to buy it.

21. Include testimonial quotes in your query from friends ("This books ROCKS!"), your grannie ("You really should buy this book because back in '43 my friend Mildred..."), or your neighbor's dog ("Woof!"). It'll impress her so much she'll be stuffing that contract in the mail ASAP.

20. Demand the editor sign a notarized affidavit stating she will not steal (or sell) your idea, your characters, or your plot.

19. Begin your query letter with: "I'd like to submit my partially finished manuscript, "Luv Sux". I would have included a synopsis, but I haven't written the ending so..."

18. Douse your manuscript pages with a cheap knock-off of Liz Taylor's "Passion" and fill the envelope with glitter.

17. Call the editor no less than once a day (twice is even better!) until you get a response to your 300-page erotic-historical-paranormal-mystery-chick-lit titled "It's All Good".

16. Pay a visit to an editor's blog and rant about their personality, her obvious hatred for romance authors, and her (need for a) sex life.

15. Should anyone be short sighted enough to actually reject your work, immediately fire back a four-page rant, signed in blood, about what a complete dunce they are and how you will be laughing all the way to the bank when a REAL editor discovers your talent and turns you into the next J.K. Rowling. You want that person to wallow in shame when they realize they've turned down the next New York Times Best seller.

14. You don't want your manuscript pages to get lost, so be sure to staple them all securely together...or better yet three-hole punch them and put them in a binder. It will be so much easier for the editor to read. She'll be overwhelmed with gratitude. Trust me.

13. Along with your proposal, include your best friend's rendition of your cover art. This way when the editor buys your book, they'll have a head start on what it should look like, AND your best friend will get credit for the art work.

12. Try some cute formatting to get the editor's attention. Your manuscript will certainly stand out if it's written in 16 pt Black Chancery on real parchment. Plus it will make your story seem longer if there are only 12 lines of text per page.

11. Never use contractions! Be sure all of your characters, no matter what genre, all speak like 17th century English rogues.

10. Mail the only copy that exists of your 800 page epic (typed on that uber-thin, transparent erasable paper) to Harlequin.

9. Confuse a series of catastrophes with "plot".

8. Write your category romance from six different points of view, including the heroine's pet lizard, Godzilla's.

7. Post the name and email of the (unlucky) editor you've submitted your masterpiece to and tell all twenty people who read it to hound her with emails until she buckles under the pressure and buys it.

6. Bury your prose under towering mountains of adverbs and adjectives, unnecessary dialogue tags and redundant words.

5. Decide punctuation is for elementary school kids and literary conservatives.

4. Start your query letter with the following: "Dear Editor, the last ten romance novels I've read sucked, and so I thought..."

3. Go to a writer's conference and stalk the editor of your dreams until you have her cornered in the bathroom/elevator/wherever, then slip her your manuscript, along with an adequate bribe.

2. Believe you are the next Dan Brown/Nora Roberts/whoever, and you don't need to change a word of your masterpiece.

1. Never finish a project you start. Or never submit a completed manuscript.

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The lessons learned from each:

25. There's no need to talk about advances until after an editor has made an offer.

24. Repeat after me -- No one's work is perfect. You can expect people to be pointing out imperfections from the beginning. Critique partners. Agents. Editors. Copy editors. Reviewers. Readers. Believe me, having a book published can be a very humbling experience.

23. There are no such things as Pity-Contracts. Making an editor feel sorry for you or guilty isn't going to make her buy your book. It's just going to peeve her.

22. If an editor asks for revisions, then by all means revise and resubmit. Otherwise, you're wasting your time, money and energy. Submit elsewhere or move on to something else.

21. Don't bother mentioning how great your critique partners, friends or relatives thought your book was. That's not going to impress anyone...unless Nora is your cousin, Dan Brown is your neighbor, or James Patterson is your crit partner.

20. Editors do not have the time or inclination to sell or steal anyone's ideas/plots or characters. They have a job to do -- buy books and make them as great as they can. Besides, a work is copyrighted from the moment it is created. Thus, you own copyright and do not need to collect legal documents stating so. And finally, ideas are NOT copyrightable. Thank goodness! Or no one would be able to write a book without infringing on someone else's copyright.

19. Know what an editor wishes to see in a submission and give it to her, without excuses. If she wants a synopsis, write one. If she wants a completed manuscript, don't send her three chapters of a book that's only one third written, thinking you have LOTS of time to finish it.

18. Do I need to comment on this one?

17. First, do not label your project with a bazillion subgenre tags (erotic-historical-blahblahblah). That just makes it harder for an editor to know where your project fits in her house's lines. Use the one or two of the best-fitting tags (erotic historical) and leave the rest off. She'll figure it out when she looks at the synopsis. Second, unless an editor has invited you to call her, do not EVER hound her for a response. That's a surefire way to land a generic "Dear Author..." rejection letter.

16. First, never assume that anything you post on the Internet is anonymous. There are ways for people to discover your identity. Second, insulting a publishing professional, even if they edit for a house you'd never in a million years submit to, is plain crazy. Show a little respect or risk eating your words later when the editor with the sucky love life ends up becoming the next Managing Editor of Romance at Dream House Publishing. Editors change houses. They change genres. They talk to each other, to agents...

15. The world of publishing, especially romance fiction, is small. If you take your career seriously, don't burn bridges. Accept an editor's decision with dignity, no matter how wrong you think they are.

14. Do not bind submissions (unless specifically told to do so). Most editors want unbound pages, held together with perhaps one or two big rubber bands. Nothing fancy.

13. A sign of an amateur. Publishers have an art department that is manned with folks who are familiar with the guidelines of the company (regarding artwork) and the marketing angle the publisher is going with for the book. Plus, they possess reasonably accurate knowledge of what customers (readers) like/don't like within specific genres. Trust them. They generally know what they're doing.

12. If you want to be respected and treated like a professional, present your product -- your manuscript -- professionally. Follow standard formatting. Fancy fonts are hard to read. I doubt any editor would risk a migraine by squinting to read fifty pages of swirly, curly text. She'll stuff your pages in your return envelope, along with a generic rejection.

11. Writing in formal prose does not make you look intelligent, nor will it magically transform your alien love story into a literary novel.

10. Follow standard manuscript formatting, use good quality paper. NEVER mail the only copy of anything. And most importantly, know your target publishing houses. Harlequin does not publish 800 page epics...at least not yet.

9. Plot is NOT a series of disasters. That is a typical week in the life of a middle-aged housewife...but I digress. Plot is a complicated web of threads, woven to produce a compelling, page-turning story. Don't understand what I'm describing here? There are plenty of craft books in your local Borders/Waldenbooks and Barnes and Nobles. Buy a few and read them.

8. Read MANY books published by your target house (not just one or two). I've used series romances as an example. Most often they're written in two (with possibly a third -- a villain's) POVs. Maybe you read one that had a pet's POV, published back in '83 (I wouldn't know) but if the vast majority of recently published books have two POVs, you're best off following the masses.

7. FYI -- editors don't buy books because twenty people hound her to publish said book so they can "read the rest". Unless those twenty people promise to buy a hundred thousand or so copies each. THAT might convince her. Otherwise, you're just plain killing your chances of the editor taking you seriously.

6. Rather than writing sentences full of vague words that must be "prettied up" with modifiers, use words that are specific and paint a picture in the reader's mind. Example: The tall man ran quickly across the street. Revised to: The behemoth zig-zagged between veering taxis, delivery vans and German sedans, tires screeching on wet concrete.

5. Okay...do I need to explain this one? BTW, I made up the term "literary conservative". Don't know if there really is such a thing.

4. First, editors like to see query letters addressed to them by name. The greeting, "Dear editor" screams "multiple submission by careless/lazy/clueless wanna-be writer." Second, editors don't want to hear that the books they loved (and spent the past twelve months reading, revising, pitching, promoting, etc.) suck. Not the way to gain favor here. Nope.

3. First, editors don't want to be stalked. That's creepy. And two, editors may appreciate having a little extra cash to spend on margaritas, but that won't help them convince the PTB Monday morning to buy your manuscript (some houses use a committee-type setup when determining what books to contract). Finally, editors don't want to haul 400 page manuscripts when they travel home. They'd rather carry all those fabu free (published!) books home instead. This is why it's more likely they'll toss all but the first page of your Next-DaVinci-Code masterpiece before heading to the airport, then mail you a "Dear Author" rejection letter a week before next year's conference.

2. Writers who eventually get published learn the value of honest critique partners. They realize they can stay true to their vision while making changes that will strengthen their story.

1. Unless you're the ex-lover of a former U.S. president or survivor of some disaster (like the Titanic's final voyage), to get published, you're going to have to write, write, write. And there's more! You need to write a book from beginning to end, not start a bazillion projects but finish none of them. And then after that you must polish that rough draft until it shines. Finally, you must submit, submit, submit.

You see? There's no magic to it. Just lots of hard work.

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Byline: Tawny Taylor is a multi-published author of over 20 books, including PASSION UNBOUND: WILD NIGHTS, and CARPE NOCTURNE: DRESSED TO KILL.