All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my slushpile.

image: Salon.com

With self-publishing on the rise, anyone can be an author. No more slush pile! No more snooty agents and editors as gatekeepers! The public will decide which books succeed through the glories of democracy!

But what happens to the readers in this scenario? That’s what Laura Miller asks on Salon.com. As she puts it, is the public prepared to meet the slush pile?

You’ve either experienced slush or you haven’t, and the difference is not trivial. People who have never had the job of reading through the heaps of unsolicited manuscripts sent to anyone even remotely connected with publishing typically have no inkling of two awful facts: 1) just how much slush is out there, and 2) how really, really, really, really terrible the vast majority of it is. Civilians who kvetch about the bad writing of Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer or any other hugely popular but critically disdained novelist can talk as much trash as they want about the supposedly low standards of traditional publishing. They haven’t seen the vast majority of what didn’t get published — and believe me, if you have, it’s enough to make your blood run cold, thinking about that stuff being introduced into the general population.

Have you ever read any slush? Does that affect your feelings about self-publishing?

•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  

3 responses to “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my slushpile.”

1. 07.15.2010 @ 10:23 am Helen W. Mallon says:

   I have waded through slush…reading for literary magazines. Most of it was so stunningly dreadful that it made me wonder why it’s so hard to get published.

   Good for the soul, though, to channel Simon Cowell once in a while.

2. 07.16.2010 @ 11:52 am Jes says:

   Thank goodness for good editors, good editorial assistants, and anyone with taste who helps whittle down the countless manuscripts out there. I’ve read very little slush, only a bit here an there, but it always reminds me that if a book is wonderful and good, eventually someone will pounce on it and launch it into the world. It may not get the marketing it deserves, or the readership, but I feel like eventually the best writing champions itself.

   There are undoubtedly wonderful novels and stories that are self-published, but how, oh how, is the lone individual reader ever supposed to find them? There just aren’t enough hours in the day.

3. 09.13.2010 @ 8:03 am Fiction Writers Review » Blog Archive » The New Self-Publishing says:

   [...] Of course, democratizing the process—or making the readers into “gatekeepers,” as Konrath puts it—has its own drawbacks… [...]

Comment