Editorial Anonymous got me thinking about How to Overhaul the Slush System. The discussion so far has focused on how to deal with the number of submissions coming in, all the physical space taken up by that paper, and all the staffers’ time taken up by all those words.
But what about reducing — while not halting entirely — the number of submissions arriving in the first place?
Editorial Anonymous began her post by quoting a reader who asked, “In this day and age, shouldn’t there be a better way? An online process that allows authors to post their work on a publisher’s web site, much like posting a resume on Monster.com?”
But a recent article in The New York Times pointed out a problem with Monster.com — and, to my mind, a potential solution for children’s publishers:
Recruiters with six-figure jobs to fill know better than to post them online and start a stampede of marginally qualified job seekers. But they also know that the Web is the easiest way to find applicants.
The Web’s surprising answer to the problem? Charge them to look.
That’s right — I’m comparing children’s writers to executives on the hunt for six-figure salaries. (Our checks can have six figures, too — just don’t pay any mind to the placement of those decimals.) But as with Monster.com, there’s a big burden on the companies on the receiving end (of resumes or manuscripts) and next to no barrier to entry for the individuals making the pitch.
TheLadders.com, the high-end recruiting service profiled by the Times, charges individuals $30 a month to have a look at job postings. Wouldn’t something similar — say, a $5 fee per submission — cut down on the number of manuscripts that arrive in the first place?
Before I had an agent, I made somewhere around 300 submissions. I like to think I was on the more-professional-than-most end of the spectrum. I researched houses and individual editors as carefully as I could and made educated guesses about where each manuscript had the best odds. But I also submitted a lot of manuscripts to multiple editors simultaneously, and I sent out manuscripts that, in retrospect, weren’t quite ready.
At $5 a pop, would I have sent a manuscript to two or three editors at a time instead of to five? You bet. Would I have taken another pass or two at revising a manuscript before I sent it out? No doubt about it.
Maybe the right figure would be $2 per submission. Maybe it would be $10. Maybe the fee would rise and fall in relation to the publisher’s backlog — a relationship that could be made visible to writers via a fancy graphic incorporated into an online submissions form.
Maybe the fees would be pure profit for the publishers. Maybe they’d pay for another editorial assistant. Maybe they’d go to a sort of scholarship for financially disadvantaged writers so that the slush pile isn’t filled only with the work of writers well-off enough to pay those fees without thinking twice.
Maybe writers would avoid that publisher in droves, and the policy would be widely mocked (starting in the comments to this post) and quickly scrapped.
Maybe, but who’ll know until someone tries?
This makes sense to me. Some folks would certainly put up with fees from the better houses, just like freelance magazine writers put up with long response times, likely rejection, and payment only upon publication from The New Yorker.
This makes sense to me. Some folks would certainly put up with fees from the better houses, just like freelance magazine writers put up with long response times, likely rejection, and payment only upon publication from The New Yorker.
Having just until recently used the services of theladders.com in my job search, I can vouch for the experience as a job seeker, too. I, the job-seeker, gladly pay the $30 monthly fee not only because I am among fewer and (I hope) richer candidates, but also because it culls out a lot of the predatory employers who pretty themselves up, but are either boiler room sales or some multi-level marketing scam.
Nothing can lay an unemployed MBA quite as low as receiving an inquiry and finding out it’s actually some $10/hour job distributing flyers or a potential “employer” wanting to set up an interview actually a “professional services” company trying to bring you in to give you the hard sell on their resume services.
I would imagine similar hijinks would occur in the publishing world, if they don’t already.
Having just until recently used the services of theladders.com in my job search, I can vouch for the experience as a job seeker, too. I, the job-seeker, gladly pay the $30 monthly fee not only because I am among fewer and (I hope) richer candidates, but also because it culls out a lot of the predatory employers who pretty themselves up, but are either boiler room sales or some multi-level marketing scam.
Nothing can lay an unemployed MBA quite as low as receiving an inquiry and finding out it’s actually some $10/hour job distributing flyers or a potential “employer” wanting to set up an interview actually a “professional services” company trying to bring you in to give you the hard sell on their resume services.
I would imagine similar hijinks would occur in the publishing world, if they don’t already.
The Christian publishing industry already has something like this, and many of their publishers either do or used to require unagented authors to submit that way or not at all. But from everything I’ve heard, it doesn’t really work for authors. It’s a way that publishers can avoid getting slush, but I suspect most of the publishers don’t actually look at the manuscripts people are paying a fortune to put up there ($98 for each manuscript proposal for a 6-month period!).
The Christian publishing industry already has something like this, and many of their publishers either do or used to require unagented authors to submit that way or not at all. But from everything I’ve heard, it doesn’t really work for authors. It’s a way that publishers can avoid getting slush, but I suspect most of the publishers don’t actually look at the manuscripts people are paying a fortune to put up there ($98 for each manuscript proposal for a 6-month period!).
I think you’re onto something, except for the fact that plenty of not-very-good-writers with a heap o’ dough are gonna flood the system, right? And that one crystalline little story that the writer can only afford to send out once is going to end up buried in the midst of all that. Do you think?
I think you’re onto something, except for the fact that plenty of not-very-good-writers with a heap o’ dough are gonna flood the system, right? And that one crystalline little story that the writer can only afford to send out once is going to end up buried in the midst of all that. Do you think?
The difficulties not considered with paying publishers to host a site on which authors must pay to post their stories:
1. It doesn’t automatically guarantee high quality of submissons. If folks are willing to pay postage for slush pile submissions, they would just as easily pay nominal fees to post on a publisher’s website. In fact, egos being what they are with new writers, they might be more than willing to shell out more expensive fees just to get posted online in connection with a big publisher rather than send manuscripts through the dreary slush pile route!
2. The publisher is not going to legally assume any risks associated with your posting of your original work online any more than they would assume for work being sent to a slush pile. In other words, it ain’t going to be any safer, especially now with so many publishers just shredding and refusing to return rejected slushpile work anyway….
3. Publshers can easily set guidelines for submissions on their websites, things like cover letters, precise spelling of names and titles, error-free submissions, subsmisssions in proper manuscript format and just as easily set them for online posting of manuscripts. Either way, a weeding out process of some sort would be necessary.
The difficulties not considered with paying publishers to host a site on which authors must pay to post their stories:
1. It doesn’t automatically guarantee high quality of submissons. If folks are willing to pay postage for slush pile submissions, they would just as easily pay nominal fees to post on a publisher’s website. In fact, egos being what they are with new writers, they might be more than willing to shell out more expensive fees just to get posted online in connection with a big publisher rather than send manuscripts through the dreary slush pile route!
2. The publisher is not going to legally assume any risks associated with your posting of your original work online any more than they would assume for work being sent to a slush pile. In other words, it ain’t going to be any safer, especially now with so many publishers just shredding and refusing to return rejected slushpile work anyway….
3. Publshers can easily set guidelines for submissions on their websites, things like cover letters, precise spelling of names and titles, error-free submissions, subsmisssions in proper manuscript format and just as easily set them for online posting of manuscripts. Either way, a weeding out process of some sort would be necessary.
Hey! Maybe those submission fees could go to support the poor unpaid or underpaid intern reading the slush. Remember “finders, keepers”? There wouldn’t have to be a set amount. In fact the size of the bill slipped between the pages of the manuscript might be a key factor in determining whether the story was sent on the the next level. Some might call this bribery, but it could also be considered lobbying on one’s own behalf. (Said to happen in the corridors of power all the time.)
Seriously, though, I think a major publishing house tried something similar back in the 90’s. They were selling a writing course on CD that included the opportunity to submit a manuscript to one of their editors if you paid an extra fee. As I recall the fee was quite hefty. The program was scrapped when it became evident to writers that these “editors” were only part-timers hired to read (and mostly reject) the hopefuls who had bought into the course. I can’t remember which publisher it was.
I don’t have any solutions to the slush pile crisis myself. I’ve managed to sell two manuscripts that way and have no doubt been guilty of all kinds of transgressions in the process. Thanks for opening this topic, though. I’m interested in reading what others have to say.
Hey! Maybe those submission fees could go to support the poor unpaid or underpaid intern reading the slush. Remember “finders, keepers”? There wouldn’t have to be a set amount. In fact the size of the bill slipped between the pages of the manuscript might be a key factor in determining whether the story was sent on the the next level. Some might call this bribery, but it could also be considered lobbying on one’s own behalf. (Said to happen in the corridors of power all the time.)
Seriously, though, I think a major publishing house tried something similar back in the 90’s. They were selling a writing course on CD that included the opportunity to submit a manuscript to one of their editors if you paid an extra fee. As I recall the fee was quite hefty. The program was scrapped when it became evident to writers that these “editors” were only part-timers hired to read (and mostly reject) the hopefuls who had bought into the course. I can’t remember which publisher it was.
I don’t have any solutions to the slush pile crisis myself. I’ve managed to sell two manuscripts that way and have no doubt been guilty of all kinds of transgressions in the process. Thanks for opening this topic, though. I’m interested in reading what others have to say.