The Ideal Submission

This post is primarily for authors who want to submit to Sift, so if you're a reader, feel free to skip this one. :-)

We've been getting an overwhelming number of submissions lately, so I thought I'd do a post on the ideal submission format. Submitting in this format will do two things:

1. It will make you more likely to be accepted for review because everything we need will be there and easy to find.
2. It will make it much easier to process on our side - which will reduce our response time.

First I will outline the ideal submission format for Sift, then I will provide an example based on my current WIP. This format is not a requirement, but it's just heavily preferred. :-) It gives us the absolutely perfect amount of information. Any more or less info creates more work for us.

Format

EMAIL SUBJECT: Submission: [Title of book]

[If you have a personal note, you can include it here. Examples include: Sarah saw a post about your book and asked for you to submit to Sift; you saw our call for steampunk dystopian horrors on Twitter; etc. This does NOT include: anything anybody outside of our reviewers has ever said about your book - I promise it won't help]

Greeting,

Summary of your book: include a paragraph summarizing the plot of your novel, the length, the genre and title.

A sentence or two with publishing info: publisher's name, available formats, publishing date and ISBN if available.

Links to where your book is available for purchase.

Preferred reviewer(s). [NOTE: If your preferred reviewer is not available, your submission will be circled to every reviewer before declined] I have read and agree to the terms and conditions published on the Sift Book Reviews website.

Signature

You may include the first two pages (500 words) ONLY below your signature - in Plain Text. If you include more than two pages, your submission runs the risk of getting deleted, unread.

(Don't include anything else like: quotes, editorials, blurbs, or pictures. Any attachments may result in a decline.)

Example

EMAIL SUBJECT: Submission: DRAGONS ARE PEOPLE, TOO

Dear Sift Reviews,

I would like to request a review of my YA Urban Fantasy, Dragons Are People, Too, complete at 75,000 words. Sixteen-year-old Kitty is a Chinese weredragon and an operative for the US government's Draconic Intelligence Command, or DIC, as she likes to call it. When a rookie under Kitty's supervision breaks the number one rule - don't let humans know what you are - it sparks an international incident prompting the American government to imprison most of the dragons, including her family. The same day, the President's son - who is also her friend - is kidnapped by a rogue dragon and the Commander In Chief himself asks Kitty to launch a secret rescue mission. Kitty must choose between loyalty to her country and friend or allegiance to her family. 

Dragons Are People, Too was published on Uptember 35th of this year on CreateSpace. It's available in paperback, .epub, .mobi, and .pdf and the ISBN number is 1234567890123. 

Dragons Are People, Too is available for purchase:
At Amazon linkylink
at Smashwords linkylink
and on my website linkylink

I would like for either Erica or Kayelee to review my book.

Sincerely,
Sarah Nicolas

Use your incredible imagination to pretend this is my first two pages. Imagine you're reading about awesome dragon fights, covert missions, dragons, cute boys, dragons, sassy girls, dragons, high school cafeterias, dragons, gunfights, dragons, helicopter escapes, dragons, English class, dragons, Washington DC, dragons, family, dragons, friends, dragons, kitsune, dragons, fire, dragons, black suburbans, dragons, Secret Service agents and dragons. Then a secret is revealed right before more bad things happen. Dragons. And more dragons.