What do editors do with unsolicited manuscripts? They put them in a slush pile, for a rainy day or a desperate situation.
employees to read slush that rarely is worthy of publication. At Simon & Schuster, an automated telephone greeting instructs aspiring writers:
"A slush pile," according to Guy Stewart, "is the pile (electronic or paper) of
manuscripts any editor of any publishing venture (from the hardcovers of Harper & Row in New York City to Bob’s Online Magazine of Tractor Trailer Fiction in Muskatoon, Falkland Islands) has to go through to choose the writing they want to pay to publish (“pay” is a relative word here. It can mean anything from millions of dollars down to “braggin’ rights”). Anecdotally, that pile is filled with pathetic attempts at authorship."
According to the WSJ, book publishers say it is now too expensive to pay
employees to read slush that rarely is worthy of publication. At Simon & Schuster, an automated telephone greeting instructs aspiring writers:"Simon & Schuster requires submissions to come to us via a literary agent due to the large volume of submissions we receive each day. Agents are listed in 'Literary Marketplace,' a reference work published by R.R. Bowker that can be found in most libraries."
Company spokesman Adam Rothberg says the death of the publisher's slush pile accelerated after the terror attacks of 9/11 by fear of anthrax in the mail room.
Laurence J. Kirshbaum, former CEO of Time Warner Book Group and now an agent, says, "From a publisher's standpoint, the marketing considerations, especially on non-fiction, now often outweigh the editorial ones."
Hmm, so is it more important to be a good writer or a good marketer? It's not the product but the sales pitch that makes it go! What does that say for the consumers, the readers,
who are at the mercy of the system?
Seth Godin has altogether different ideas about "slush" and how we should think about it.
Do you make slush?
A few months ago, the Journal wrote a piece about the demise of the slush pile, that undifferentiated mass of unsolicited ideas from authors and screenwriters in search of a publisher or studio.
They missed the point.
In the words of Michael Brooke, "I'm not interested in creating slush."
If you have something good, really good, what's it doing in the slush pile?
Bring it to the world directly, make your own video, write your own ebook, post
your own blog, record your own music.
Or find an agent, a great agent, a selective agent, one that's almost impossible to get through to, one that commands respect and acts as a filter because after all, that's what you're seeking, a filtered, amplified way to spread your idea.
In 2008, reports the WSJ, HarperCollins launched Authonomy.com, a Web slush pile. Writers
can upload their manuscripts, readers vote for their favorites, and HarperCollins editors read the five highest-rated manuscripts each month. About 10,000 manuscripts have been loaded so far and HarperCollins has bought four.
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