Don't Let The Intern Get Your Query

No, seriously. Don't. If you do, it will get rejected 99.99% of the time. Wanna know why?

Because interns are inexperienced and woefully unprepared to evaluate whether or not a project is worthy of being taken on. For real---that's why they're interns and not full-fledged, paid staff members.

Today my boss came up to me with another submission and said, "Here you go, probably just another rejection letter." Meaning, "I glanced at it and wasn't impressed. Take a look, if you think it's special bring it back and I'll look at it again. If not, just write a rejection letter for it."

Said submission was for a non-fiction business title. I opened up the letter, read it, and thought it looked interesting. Then I looked at the table of contents that came with it, and that looked interesting too. I saw some reasons it might be worth looking at.

I also knew there were about 10,000 reasons it might not be, none of which I was knew. What else was the company publishing? Was there a book on that subject already on the list? Had the subject already been dealt with sufficiently by someone else? What was the track record of books on the subject? Were this guy's credentials (they looked decent to me) actually worth anything at all?

The list goes on. So let's do one of those Beautiful Mind-guy decision grid things that econ majors like so much, and you can try to guess what I did. Choice one is to bring it back to my boss, Choice two is to reject it. It's either good or bad, so there are four possible outcomes.

Outcome one: I bring it back and it's good. My boss asks for a full, and I never hear about it again or am even remembered by the time it's published, because I'm just an intern and I leave in two weeks.

Outcome two: I bring it back and it's bad. My boss rolls her eyes, thinks less of me, and I spend more time making copies and less time doing interesting things (like blurb-writing, which I got to do today, woot!).

Outcome three: I reject it and it's good. Nothing happens. Maybe some other publisher takes it and it blows up, but nobody at my company will ever remember it got submitted except maybe me, and I sure won't be telling.

Outcome four: I reject and it's bad. I do the right thing and I win.

These four possible outcomes hold true for pretty much every query that lands on an intern's desk. The only likely reward for us in finding something good is the knowledge that we did so, and the thought that we're helping some stranger achieve their dream.

Don't get me wrong, that's still a little motivation, but it doesn't outshine the fear of losing face and not leaving the copy room for three days.

If I'd had a brilliant, shining description of a fantasy novel, something I know a lot more about, I would've taken the risk. But here's another secret about interns (and, as I understand it, many entry-level editorial assistants): we don't necessarily wind up at houses or imprints that play to our strengths. We end up wherever we can get a job. So for every fantasy expert dealing with a business proposal there's a horror expert dealing with a romance query and a literary fiction expert dealing with a math textbook proposal.

So don't let the intern get your query. Seriously. And in practice that means getting an agent. It might be sad that the publishing industry has come to that, but it has, and personal experience has only driven that home for me.