Dear Editor…
At a SCBWI conference, I had an art director show interest in my pb dummy, however she wanted to see some changes. I have made those changes, but it has taken me five months. May I submit the ms and dummy to her at this point? Or should I submit it with the SCBWI sticker used for conference attendees to the “acquisitions” dept. and send her a follow-up letter it is submitted the usual way? It is a long time after the usual three months. We did connect via email about this project, and she was interested. Which way to proceed? Thank you for your ideas.
Sincerely,
Lisa
Dear Lisa…
Build on the connection you’ve already established – send that revised dummy to your art director contact. Five months is fine as long as she put no time limit on submissions from that conference. I wouldn’t even give it a second thought before six months. An explanation is in order, though, if you take longer than six months. At a year, you’ve pretty much missed that boat. The art director may question your ability to produce in a timely manner, or she just might have left the company altogether. There’s a lot of house jumping in publishing.
Happy writing!
The Editor