|
Crème de la Crime Ltd,
PO Box 523,
Chesterfield,
S40 9AT
All manuscripts sent to us must be accompanied by a SAE with full return postage.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
What is Crème de la Crime?
Small, flexible, independent and fast-moving, Crème de la Crime specialises in high-quality original crime fiction. We publish up to six new crime novels a year - gritty, tightly-paced, well-written and suspense-packed books with high production values, aimed at discerning crime fans.
Our twin goals are:
- To introduce new crime writers to the UK book market - previously unpublished novelists, or established authors who want to switch to crime writing.
- To provide a platform for writers who want to expand the boundaries of the crime genre. We encourage authors to experiment: unusual locations, mould-breaking characters and cross-genre elements are all of great interest to us.
Our purpose is simple: to give fledgling novelists the chance to kickstart their professional careers. Ours is one of the few publishing houses that actively encourages newcomers. We're constantly searching for new authors with flair, imagination and great story-telling skills. We look for the brightest, the most edgy, the most inventive of writers: master storytellers, crowd-pleasers, experts in terror and suspense, who can capture the imagination of the most jaundiced reader.
Crème de la Crime authors
You'll be a big crime fan, bursting with ideas about how to do it better than established authors, and aware of the conventions and pitfalls of the genre. You'll know how challenging it is to create a deviously intriguing plot, understand how vital accuracy is and have your own secret recipe for concocting a nerve-twisting thriller.
You'll have market savvy. You'll know what readers want now, not 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
You won't be a one-hit wonder. Ideas will be ricocheting around your mind for your second, third and fourth books.
You'll have the right attitude - businesslike as well as creative. You'll understand the importance of deadlines, and will complete your manuscript on time and to the standard required. You'll co-operate fully with the experienced editor assigned to oversee the revision and polishing of your manuscript, and will act on any advice without argument. No one will ask you to harm the integrity of the novel, but it must conform to our production style, stick to the storyline originally pitched to us and meet the delivery deadline.
You'll be computer-literate. You MUST be able to deliver work on disk. Retyping 70,000+ words isn't practical. It also helps if you're contactable by e-mail.
You'll be outgoing and media-friendly. Our authors are our publicity department; you'll be expected to work hard to promote your book. You won’t have to kiss babies, but smiling at bookshop managers would be useful!
Crème de la Crime books
Our books are distinctive - punchy, exciting and innovative. They rattle along, fast-paced and dynamic. We leave the 600-page blockbusters to the big publishing houses, and focus on the lean, mean and gripping end of the market ; all our books are 70,000 - 80,000 words.
We target voracious readers who devour crime fiction and go in search of more. And we feature protagonists that break the mould of traditional crime writing. Our cops and robbers aren't retreads of stereotypes: they are fascinating gumshoes and villains who live and breathe.
All forms of crime writing are welcome - courtroom dramas, whodunits, police procedurals, amateur sleuth romps, high-tech heists, comedy-crime capers, high-tension thrillers. In fact, we love to see books that don’t slavishly follow the herd; a string of murders is not compulsory. A cracking confidence trickster yarn would really excite us.
Crime happens anywhere in the world, and in the future or the past as well as the here and now. So do our books.
We’re delighted to consider works that cross genre boundaries and include horror, romance, erotic, science fiction or fantasy elements.
But we will only consider work that sweeps away the old and brings in the new…
So forget
- Agatha Christie rip-offs with dead colonels discovered in country house libraries;
- detectives who are cantankerous crossword buffs;
- hard-boiled private eyes strolling down the mean streets of 1940s Chicago;
- maverick cops with a drink problem, a comic sidekick and a pencil-headed bellowing boss;
Of course, far and away the best way to find out what we like is to look at the books we've already published. No two are alike, so best to read a selection.
Cherchez la Femme
It’s a simple fact of life: women buy more crime books than their male counterparts. We can't explain it, but we can make use of it! All Crème de la Crime books need to appeal to a female audience.
That doesn’t mean soft and fluffy - quite the opposite. Women like gritty books packed with menace and tension. But they also like pro-active feisty female characters they can identify with, women who can mix it up alongside the men.
So there must be strong women players somewhere in the drama. We’re not interested in token females thrown in as romantic interest, or Boys’ Own thrillers where men are men and women wait passively to tend their wounds. Crème de la Crime women don't scream a lot and wait to be rescued; they get themselves out of the tight spots.
What Turns Us Off
Our list of hates and prejudices isn't necessarily logical or defensible - but they're ours. Best to take notice! We really dislike:
- Childish slapstick humour.
- Badly executed spoofs and pastiches.
- A bolt-on drugs plot. So why was the mild-mannered, ageing, chess-loving market town accountant killed? Ah, you see - at weekends he was a secret drugs dealer…
- African or Middle Eastern settings.
- Anything set in the 1970s - purely so that the villains can be revealed to be Nazis who‘ve been in hiding since 1945.
- In fact, scrub Nazis altogether. We’re not interested in Nazis, neo-Nazis, Nazis in frozen storage, Nazis being created in test tubes, or anything with Hitler still alive, cloned or reborn.
- The premise that Germany won the Second World War.
- The Cold War.
- IRA hit men, or The Troubles.
- The Millennium - with or without the bug.
- James Bond rip-offs.
- Maltese Falcon/Big Sleep rip-offs.
- Novels with next to no dialogue.
- Novels written in dialect.
- Stream-of-consciousness novels.
- Stories with no real crime in them.
- Stories written for another market altogether that have a crime cynically and incongruously inserted so they can be sent to us.
- Badly written sex scenes.
- Poorly researched historicals with no sense of era - especially the kind where everyone talks and acts as though they stepped straight out of the 21st century.
Topicality
A background of current social trends helps to give a novel immediacy and impact - but beware hanging your story on a specific event in the news; it will already be stale by the time we receive your submission. Nothing ages faster than topicality.
There’s always at least a year between a manuscript's acceptance and the book's appearance in the shops. Twelve months on a headline news story is a dim recollection.
A Question of Taste
We want our readers to buy lots of Crème de la Crime novels, so we set out to entertain, not appal them. There has to be a line we won’t cross.
We're unlikely to accept manuscripts that appear to condone illegal sexual practices, child abuse, graphic depictions of torture, extreme blasphemy, racism and over the top violence. Sizzling sex is fine; mean, dangerous and gritty is great. But erotic or violent elements should enhance the plot, not cover a flagging story-line or lack of tension. And the operative word above is condone.
Bad language is not a problem; it's a tough world out there. But characters who talk in four-letter words all the time quickly become boring.
All we ask is you use a little common sense and judgement. Remember, you'll be meeting your readers.
Think you’ve got what it takes? Is your story going to make us sit up and take notice? Read on to find out how you should submit your work to us…
Covering letter
It's useful if you tell us a little about yourself - but only what's pertinent. Keep it brief and businesslike; a single page is enough.
A few pointers:
- How experienced a writer are you? We'd like to know about any of your writing that's been professionally published or any major competitions you‘ve won. Rejected work doesn't count, neither does any material that you self-published or paid someone to print on your behalf.
- Has your novel been offered elsewhere in the recent past? Please tell us who you sent it to and what their response was. If you have any feedback from them, we'd like to see it.
- Have you any specialist knowledge or relevant experience? For example, have you worked in law enforcement, forensic medicine, social work, criminal psychology, victim support? Or have you been a criminal yourself?
- Is there anything about you that would spark media interest and help us to gain publicity for your work? Have you any contacts who would help us promote your book?
Beyond those points, just let the work do the talking for you. Please don’t EXPLAIN the story or its significance, or try to draw our attention to very important plot points. We’re smart enough to work it out for ourselves - and if it turns out we're not, maybe the problem is with the book, not with us.
Really annoying are diffident letters which apologise for the work, or arrogant rants which tell us how wonderfully, marvellously, brilliant the work is and how it is a guaranteed best-seller!
Short and sweet
One of the things we try our best to do is give writers a swift reply when they submit work. We don't always succeed - that's life, and there are only 24 hours in a day - but we do our best to get back to you with our decision within 40 working days of receiving a manuscript. We ask writers to make it easier for us by sending in ONLY a 1000-1500 word synopsis and the first 10,000 words of the novel.
We don’t need to see the entire manuscript to get a clear idea of the strength of your writing and storytelling skills, or the commercial possibilities of the novel. Those 10,000 words will reveal whether you and the work have potential. If you haven’t excited us in the first few critical chapters, it’s unlikely the next 50,000 words will do the trick. If we’re impressed by the opening, THEN we’ll ask you to send us more.
Don’t try to be cute and send 10,000 words from the middle or the end of the book, because you think it’s the most thrilling bit. An exciting action sequence is not hard to write; we need to see how you tackle the much more demanding job of setting up the mystery that will power the storyline: how cleverly and professionally you reel the reader in.
Smoke-free
We respect anyone's right to smoke - as long as we don't have to put up with the resulting smell. There are few bigger turn-offs for us than opening an envelope and being knocked back by the reek of stale tobacco. None of the Crème de la Crime staff smokes and we all feel strongly on the subject. So we ask that you ensure all submissions are completely smoke-free.
Manuscript presentation
Your manuscript gets just one chance to make a good impression. Good presentation is crucial. We want clean manuscripts - not yellowing, dog-eared, coffee-stained copies that have been lying around for years. We expect manuscripts free from tippex, and scribbled amendments and comments.
All submissions must be:
- In English.
- Clearly typed, on one side of the page only.
- Double line spaced.
- On white A4 paper.
- Tidy, with each page numbered and arranged in order.
- Accompanied by a title sheet that states the title, an ACCURATE word count, your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address if you have one.
- Unpublished, original, your own work and not under offer to other publishers.
If your typewriter ribbon/ink cartridge is on its last legs, invest in a new one. Anything difficult to decipher will be automatically rejected.
Please do not submit work in plastic sleeves or ring-binders, or spiral-bound. A large paper clip or plain envelope folder is enough.
We are unable to accept on-line submissions.
And afterwards…
We only want to see the first 10,000 words of your manuscript in the first instance - but you must be prepared to respond quickly if we like the work and want to see more. We’ll want to see additional chapters IMMEDIATELY - not a year later! Only submit work if you’ve written at least three-quarters of the book; and if it's not finished when you send the opening, keep on writing.
Sending work
Please send your submission to:
Creme de la Crime Ltd
PO Box 523
CHESTERFIELD
DERBYSHIRE
S40 9AT
MOST IMPORTANT: submissions will only be returned if you have provided a self-addressed return envelope with adequate postage.
If you want notification that the manuscript has arrived safely, please enclose a stamped, self addressed postcard.
If you’d like some feedback from the editor who reads your work, the manuscript should be accompanied by a cheque or bank draft for £25 payable to Crème de la Crime. This is the only money we will ever ask you to part with – and it’s optional. It's also something very few large publishers are prepared to do.
We hope these guidelines have told you all you need. We look forward to seeing your work.
FRANK ANSWERS TO AWKWARD QUESTIONS
Q. Why do you charge a fee for feedback on submissions?
A. We're a publishing house, not a writing school or an appraisal service. We're talent spotters, not teachers. But we know how much value writers place on an informed opinion of their work. Big publishers used to offer this service free to promising authors, even though it was expensive and time-consuming. But we’re living in the 21st century now; it quite simply costs too much.
Each submission we receive is scrutinised by one of our professional editors - and professional means we have to pay them. If you went to one of the appraisal services which advertise in the writers’ press, you’d have to pay considerably more than the modest £25 we charge, and there’s no guarantee that the feedback you’d receive would come from a professional editor.
The feedback and fee are optional. If you take up the offer, it’s the only time Crème de la Crime will ever ask you for money.
Q. I bet you’ll hit me with a bill somewhere further down the line.
A. Absolutely not. We want your commitment, not your cash.
The £25 fee is purely to pay the manuscript reader for providing feedback on your work – and it’s optional. Beyond that, it's all down to us. If we like your book enough to publish it we take the entire financial risk. All we ask from you is that you smile - for the camera and at booksellers.
Q. So you pay advances and royalties like every other publisher?
A. Royalties, yes. Our authors receive a percentage of receipts from booksellers: a realistic share of the profit per copy.
Advances, no. We want our writers to feel they have as much involvement in making their book a success as we do. We want you to be part of the adventure, on the rollercoaster with us, sharing the challenges as well as the thrills. Your book will earn what it earns, not an arbitrary up-front payment which it then has to claw back.
Besides, paying advances would mean tying up capital that could be better used to help other new writers through the door.
Q. If you only going to pay a small amount, why don’t I take my novel to Random House instead?
A. Who said we’ll only pay a small amount? Our words were Your book will earn what it earns; if that runs into six or seven figures, we’ll be as delighted as you.
On the other hand, if a big publishing house wants you, go to them, with our congratulations. Have a great career, have a great life, send us a postcard from your new yacht. But the reality is that major corporate publishers take on very few new faces; that's why we set up Crème de la Crime - to give new talent a break.
We also like to think that we give you more personal attention than you'll get in a large publisher's stable, where you’ll be one of dozens, constantly in the shadow of celebrity authors.
We suspect you'll also find us more fun. When did anyone in the big publishing houses last talk about having an adventure?
Q. Won't you be upset if I take professional advice before signing the contract?
A. Quite the opposite - we'd strongly urge it. We want you to have peace of mind. When it comes to signing on the dotted line we'd urge all our potential novelists to contact the Society of Authors for advice. We want everyone we work with to be happy that they are being treated fairly and with respect.
Q. Isn't this too good to be true?
A. You won't think that when you see how hard we'll work you promoting your book. And we're not talking about travelling in a stretch limo!
|
