What Do Editors Really Want

This isn't really hot news, but it's interesting. The powers that be at the Authors Guild newsletter asked editors, "What do you want?"

You can just about change the names and the publishing houses and keep the comments the same because editors and agents always say, "We're looking for something new."

Trouble is most of them also add, "We don't really know what that is though."

Something new. That covers a lot of territory. Unfortunately, it can't be too new because that gets turned down. I often wonder if motivationist (don't really know if that's a word, but it fits the job description) Paul Harvey was correct when he said something similar to: "Something new can't be more than 10% new or it doesn't get accepted."

What do you think?