What Happens When Your Manuscript Ends Up In The Slush Pile
And How Do You Get Out?
During one of my many visits to New York City, I stopped in to visit my publishing house and have a chat with the senior editor handling the line of books I wrote for. I was astonished to see the small office she worked in and the enormous pile of unsolicited manuscripts she had piled in a corner waiting to be read. This, I was to learn, was the slush pile.
When she or her assistant (mostly her assistant) had time, they would pull a few envelopes from the slush and read them.
An Editor’s Priority
The first responsibility of an editor is to work on the projects she’s contracted with the authors writing for that house. My editor had a white board with all the books under contract and she showed me how she kept track of where the books were in the process. Some were waiting to be delivered by the author, others she was reading, others were with the copy editor.
Between working through and managing the contracted books, editors read and acquire new material, first form established authors and from agents they regularly work with. They have meetings and phone calls and emails with agents, authors, and in-house professionals who are also working on the same contracted books.
