Putting on the editor hat

As most of you know, I'm editing two short story anthologies. It's my first time doing this and so far it's been very interesting as the subs roll in. Now it's time to start selecting stories.

Surprisingly, the most important thing I've learned so far is not about editing. It's about subbing and querying.  Now that I'm the one getting the emails, it's an entirely different world. I followed along on #queryfail and wondered if people really said the things editors pointed out. Well, they do.

After reading about 100 query and sub cover letters, I know exactly what to put in and what not to. I honestly didn't read anything in a letter except what I needed: word count, pairing, story title, blurb. The rest I ignored unless I had to read the whole thing to find that. I didn't have time to read that stuff, and honestly not much else is that important.

Would you believe that I got a few subs that didn't even have the story title in the email? I had to look at the attachment to find it to put in my spreadsheet. I'd say fewer than half of the people provided all of that basic information in a way that was easily accessible or well organized.

What I did get in the cover letters: childhood stories, best friend stories, and a detailed life story rather than a 150-word bio.

I got one het sub, too, which was interesting since I'm pretty sure it was clear I was looking for gay or lesbian stories.

And I've just scratched the surface on reading.

I'll do another post just on the odd stuff people mentioned that they probably shouldn't have.