You’ve all heard the advice about submissions to agents and publishers. Read the guidelines. Double space. Use a clear font. Be professional. Be courteous. Conform!

I say fuck that. Your standard approach is just going to earn you a slot in the wobbly slush pile, where it will fester for months underneath a thousand other novels written by other professional, courteous, conformist authors. You, dear writer, are special. Way more special than all the other special people out there. Why not show it to the publisher with a grand gesture that will inspire awe and ensure a six-figure advance?

Over the next few months, I am repeatedly going to creak open my scaly maw and reveal glistening pearls of writerly wisdom on how you can ensure your manuscript bypasses the slush pile entirely.

These amazing, and completely free, tips will be broken down by genre. First up, as you may have noticed, is erotica. I think this visualization of the moment of revelation on the editor’s part speaks for itself, although you may wish to include some hand sanitizer for whomever has to extract the document. And maybe some correcting fluid for the discoloured portions of the manuscript.

Please feel free to try this out, document the results and post them online so all the other writers out there can see just how powerful this technique is.

I wish you luck, and would like to point out that any court cases/beatings/issues with anal seepage ensuing from your decision to adopt this method are entirely your own fault.