How to avoid the slushpile

[Daniel Hetberg]

Maybe my post came across the wrong way. I believed that there are (or may be) reasons for the requirements mentioned in the article, I was just asking "why?".

Of course, the ink should be darkest black, it's better on the eyes, no questions about that. But why no darkest black photocopy? Ok, so that you can be 10 grams surer he didn't send his manuscript elsewhere at the same time. But even if you send your stuff to one publisher at a time, you will still likely send it to several tens of publishers until one might take it (or not). The logic that something is bad, because the writer was "too cheap" to print it out 50 or how many times on a desktop printer is flawed.

Ok, so courier and the very precise margins are industry standard, to be able to guess the word count, fair enough. Why is the word count so important? Does a couple hundred more or less (from word processor estimate) make that much of a difference?

Please, again, understand I'm not asking because I think it's stupid, and will never adhere to such rules, I'm just trying to make sense of them.

edit: Maybe I should let this rest. Blind obedience might be better in this case, seeing it is tongue-in-cheek and all that. Thanks for the well-meaning answers.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've never actually heard of a publisher turning down a photocopy, unless it was a poor one. I've sent out many a photocopied manuscript in my time. (Back in the days when we were all using typewriters, it was expected.) But of course it has to be printed with dark ink in the first place, to make a good copy.

As for estimating the word count, a few thousand words don't matter when they buy a book, but once that same manuscript starts going through the production process they do need to know, so they can figure out the book design, the approximate page count, and all the rest of it.

(It's different with short fiction that you sell to a magazine. There, an exact word count can mean the difference between a sale and no sale, because they only have so many column inches to fill per issue.)

So often, when new writers grow impatient with the publishing process, it's because they don't look past the moment when a manuscript is sold. The editor, naturally, has to think in those terms all of the time.

[theDamonfreak]

HAH! That made me laugh, even though I am an antelope. Granted, not a wheedling, whining short-story-to-a-magazine antelope, but a novel antelope to an agent/publisher lion.

Yowch, evolution hurts. True, though. Every bit.

Thanks for the basic layout of the cover letter, that is one thing I have been wrestling over for a while, drafting over and over and over again. And then just once more.

Much help and laughs.

[Lith]

Just a small, belated point on Courier- it is a "monospace" type, which means that w's and i's take up the same amount of space, making it much easier for word-counting purposes. Most typefaces readjust the width between the letters to make it read easier, resulting in an i that counts as a half and a w as a one-and-a-half, etc.

[timelord4]

They use Courier font because it is evenly spaced from one letter to the next (exactly) and each letter takes up the same space (exactly). Helps with the printer as well as the editor. And helps overcome mistakes like the 'n' 'm' for the poor sighted. A lot of publishers/agents now accept New Times Roman font size 12, double spaced. And some of them don't require you to double tap after each full stop. Little changes.

However, it would not be a very understanding agent who would expect you not to submit to more than one agent at a time. In fact that's stupid. Of course you do. That said, you should ALWAYS let the agent know you have made multiple submissions. In this industry they all know each other and they ALL talk.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by timelord4

However, it would not be a very understanding agent who would expect you not to submit to more than one agent at a time. In fact that's stupid. Of course you do.

I'd say that it was a not very understanding author who expects a busy agent to read a whole manuscript when the book is already under consideration by another agent. Agents don't get paid to read manuscripts -- the honest ones don't anyway -- and I think they have every right to decide what they will and won't read, without being accused of stupidity. We contact them, not the other way around. It would be different if they came around soliciting our business.

[Anastasia]

I have no idea why Courier, let alone the worse Times New Roman got to be industry standard. Both are a devil to read if you have the slightest sight problems, and evil for dyslexics (even mild dyslexics like myself). I think some publishers are living in the dark ages!

I use Comic Sans for all my university work, as I was advised to by a disabilities officer. I could submit it in anything my tutor required, of course, due to the wonders of MS Word but so far, all the comments I've had have been "Wow, what's that font? It's really easy to read!"

Of course, these days everything is submitted as an MS Word attachment anyway, so I think it's going to be less and less important what font you actually write in. But it would probably be a great idea to find out what your publisher requires before submitting work.

Thanks for this amusing post - it tells a lot of truth, I'm sure. I heard an even funnier "What not to do" however - a guy who stapled a photograph of himself and the map reference to his house, on the front of a manuscript!

[vintagefury]

This was a fun read It kind of validated something I learned in my gaming days for me: someone who can listen to instructions is more valuable than someone who can get the job done. I suppose this works in all walks of life.

[hippokrene]

Works are rejected because the author used a pseudonym?

Originally Posted by I, Brian

As soon as you see anything, no matter how trivial, that causes your attention to wander from the prose, stop...

Given that this is the only part that deals with the manuscript itself, a bit more info would be nice. What usually causes a reader's attention to wander from the prose?

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by hippokrene

Works are rejected because the author used a pseudonym?

Not really. There is a good deal of truth behind some of the humor in that article, but it's largely just silliness meant to get a laugh.

[DarkBunni]

ehehehhehehehehehehehehehehehehhehehehehehehehehe
hehehhehehehehehehehehehehe
hehehehehhehehe
ehehehehe
eheheheh
eheh
heh
eh
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.
.
That made me laugh O_O

[Urlik]

if you've read Tom Holt's My Hero, you would do everything in your power to keep your characters out of the slushpile.
that is a really scary place and no-one, however fictional, should be sent there

[Tobytwo]

Ultimately some of the comments in the article are more valid than others. It's a shame in a way that it is written to be comic, because in exaggerating for effect some of the truth is lost. Many aspiring writers honestly do not know how true some of these points are and never will, because they get no explanation of why their manuscript was rejected except some standard letter. It's one thing to know they didn't like the story, another to wonder if it got sent back because the spacing between lines was a bit wrong. (Obviously because of volumes of submissions there will have to be standard letters, but the point stands).

Two bits of advice I've found out: One, treat the whole procedure as business. Writing the book is pleasure, getting it seen is business and calls for professionalism and thick skin. It is no longer about fun but about you and others making money from the fun.

Two: try to get some sort of credits first - short stories, articles etc. It may not help, but it's good practice for writing and it can't hurt. I am pretty certain that coming runner-up in a newspaper competition did getting my novel read no harm at all.

As a general point, I think joining a writing group is incredibly useful. Not only do you get criticism from unbiased people (and you do have to get used to taking - and knowing when not to take - criticism), they may well also have information, resources and contacts.

[busby777]

thanx for the info, and the entertainment!

[Loucifer]

This whole thread has proved to be very interesting... and the original post made me laugh!

As you can tell, I'm new to this forum (what with this being my first post and all!) and I'm also pretty new to short story writing too - so this article will be of infinite use to me! (Well, I hope it will, I just need to actually finish some stories now!)