Getting Your Resume (and Everything Else) Right for Your Submission Package

Last and maybe least in our total tour of the super submission package is your resume. While an all-important catalogue of your work and experience, the resume is not the beating heart of your submission. And yet it is essential to publishers, readers and editors, because… well, we need to know you have one!

I have seen editors sigh with relief when they read your resume and they get to the part about your education: “Oh good, they went to college. They can put a sentence together!” Then the editor can begin to hope your new book makes sense—and might even be stunningly literate and possibly magnificent. Or in a cross-checking kind of way, your resume might indicate you worked as a reporter in Cairo, so you really might know about the Middle East, where your new novel happens to be set. Yes, resumes share a lot of stuff about you. They bestow some much needed reality upon the fiction writer.

While it is not the heart of your package, there are still a lot of do’s and don’ts. For one, your resume needs to be up to date…

Recently, I just got a submission from a well-known local writer whose resume announces her “brand new book” coming out next year. That was in 2016. A sad feeling wafted over me as I read this and felt the writer did not think enough, or care enough about her work to update her resume and share what’s been going on lately—even if an ancient resume was sent by mistake. Truth be told, her submission did not go forward and not because of this stale-dated resume alone, but it surely factored into the decision.

About dates and datedness, I, myself, committed the deadly dated crime: I put my education and grad studies on my resume, after having graduated in the last century. My own managing editor told me to cut this ancient news out–pronto! I was then told the gold standard is this: if you became a college grad in the last ten years, even 15, and you’ve got shelves bowing under the weight of your college awards—for writing or debate, even lacrosse and other sports –put it on. Impresses the hell out of editors! Nothing from high school, please, unless you are still in college.

As for what exactly to put in your resume, make sure you start with your name, solidly and clearly at the top along with your profession: writer. Add here if you’re also an editor or photographer to let the reader know there is more to you than words alone. Put your web links and podcast links right at the top as well, and of course your email and cellphone contacts--don’t make me hunt for that email address to contact you with the good news!

On other top notes, I’m not sure about adding a photo. It can be distracting. Your resume should show off your skills and experience, and not your new hairdo.

What else tops my own resume, following my name, is a writer’s statement which includes the fact I am a teacher and also I am disabled. The addition can seem old fashioned, preachy, maybe even self-aggrandizing, but it has gotten me work. The statement gives editors a place to start a conversation without diving into the deep end, AKA your book.

As for the rest of the resume, tradition dictates that you list and outline your work in a few lines, from the most recent to the oldest work. It is a tradition that is hard to follow if you have few forms you work in, say, poetry, TV, film, fiction and non-fiction. If you’re a multi-talentlist your forms separately, and play to your strengths, putting your best forms first, even if it is not fiction and you are submitting a new novel. Add your glorious awards with the winning book or film or poem as it appears in your resume.

If you’ve got a long resume, you are welcome to just cover the highlights over 2 or 3 pages—4 but no more. Then, for the details refer the reader or editor to your website–and get a website! If you are new to the writing game and have a short resume–and have already included your education and awards—add your ‘interests’ especially if you have an interesting interest, like race car driving or beekeeping. Once I got a submission package from a new writer who was also studying taxidermy which got me curious. Well, I simply had to read that submission and I did indeed admire the gory details about the cutting and stuffing of the bodies in his murder mystery!

If you are not a “professional writer” and have a “real” day job, send in that resume. Having worked with a neurosurgeon, Dr. John, on a medically based thriller, SQUAWK 7700, his doctor resume is the one he hands in. Everyone gasps in awe! Perhaps not so awesome is when our doctor is asked about his writing, and he offers pieces he wrote on brain surgery. Now, though, readers can leave behind his essays packed with insights into the brain, such as brain stem carcinoma–and how to carve it–and enjoy Dr. John’s fantastic thriller.

If this is all too too much, you may be thinking about hiring a professional resume writer. It can cost anywhere from $50 and up, and $250 for a good one. It’s a good investment especially when your future best-selling novel can be worth millions. I know the value of a polished resume personally–and painfully–as I was at one time not getting a lot of work and thought, OMG, it was me! When I saw a writer pal was getting lots of gigs, and then saw his flashy resume, I poached his resume writer–a moonlighting librarian as it turns out. Soon, I had my own flashy resume and I was getting the gigs. A professionally done resume does have a certain glow about it. As for an AI written resume, stay away: they are not yet up to the job.

Even if you get a pro to do your resume, proof it and proof it again. Not only are many editors looking for any reason to say ‘No’ to your submission, we get suspicious when there are a lot of mistakes in your resume. This is because we’ve certainly seen writers apply their fiction writing skills to both their new novel and also to their resumes.

What! Lie on your resume? Well, let’s call it padding. But only pad as you would lie about your age—which is to say, whatever you can honestly get away with. Some padding is very helpful if you are new at this. But too much padding and it comes bragging and it really shows. Plus, these days it is easy enough to Google around to find out if you really were long listed for the Booker Prize.

So, you now have your resume completed, updated, proofed, and well laid out. Thus, the resume when done well is a welcomed addition to the submission package. It adds color and personality, reality and context, and can be full of hidden gems. And that gem might be that your day job is as a brain surgeon, or your hobby is taxidermy, or you were a reporter in the Middle East, you now have the editor intrigued– and your new book might get a second look. That may be all you need to turn the dial on your new novel from ‘maybe-yes’ to ‘yes’ and on toward the promised land—where it is published!