Playing the role of acquisitions editor in a small publishing house can be very rewarding. I get to read submissions from authors all around the world on every imaginable subject, fiction and non. For someone who loves to read, it's a dream job.
Well, perhaps I should clarify. Not all submissions are created equal. There are rather more submissions that end up rejected than accepted. Being rejected doesn't necessarily mean the submission isn't of high quality, of course. Years ago there was a television show called The Waltons. On it, John-boy Walton was an aspiring author. In one episode he received a rejection letter from a publisher and he was dejected. His wise old grandmother said wisely, when I go shopping for gingham, I don't buy lace, no matter how pretty it is. This has stayed with me ever since. Authors who are rejected by a particular publisher should keep it in mind. You might have been rejected because you submitted lace when what they wanted was gingham.

Be professional.
The more professional you look the more willing the editor will be to give you his much-sought-after time. In the case of my publishing house, Kunati, we accept submissions from unpublished, unrepresented authors and we accept them by email. This is almost unheard of in the industry. It gives writers unprecedented access to a publisher. But it does not give writers the right to toss off a poorly written, badly spelled, incomplete query that shows a total lack of respect for the person reading it. Me.

Follow submission guidelines
Every publisher and literary agency has its own guidelines. Read them before you send anything. Don't send a complete manuscript if the guidelines stipulate three chapters. Don't send hard copy if the publisher (Kunati) prefers electronic. If the submission guidelines request a synopsis, include one. And here's a little secret: nobody likes to read a synopsis. They are almost invariably boring and badly written, but they're necessary, sort of. Speaking entirely personally here, I hardly read them. I skim to look for main plot points, main characters, a sense of beginning, middle and end. And this is important: include the ending of your novel in the synopsis. Don't be coy and think that you're going to tease the editor into asking for your manuscript. Tell me how your story ends so I'll know that you know how to tell a story with a reasonable, logical conclusion. And keep it short. If you send me a ten-page synopsis I guarantee you will put me in a bad mood. Is this what you want from your potential best friend?

Be careful when you "follow up"
This point pertains particularly to my work at Kunati, but I'm sure there are equivalents in other author-editor relationships. Because we accept email submissions, we get a lot. Really. A lot. I keep them in folders with labels such as November Queries, Active Consideration, Non-Fiction and so on. If you have queried Kunati and wish to do a follow-up because you haven't heard from us in "six months," be sure to send your follow-up from the same address as your original query came from, and be sure to include the exact date of the original query. This is important because when an author emails me a follow-up, it makes me feel guilty. When I feel guilty, I must make the guilt go away by whatever means. So I will search for that original query until I find it, and then respond. If I cannot find the original query, I will feel even more guilty, thinking that I might have deleted it, or somehow lost it. At this point I will respond to the author doing the follow-up and apologize for not being able to find the original query. If the follow-up author then replies— "Oh, did I say March? I meant July. And by the way, I've got a different email address now. Could that have something to do with it?"—which emotion do you think will replace the aforementioned guilt?

I'll have more to say about how to become a published author with a happy editor in coming days.