Helen Ginger on her excellent blog, Straight from Hel which follows and reports publishing news and trends, linked to a story in the venerable Wall Street Journal that proclaimed the death of the slush pile.
Although the story, if true, would give every agent and editor in the business cause to celebrate (can you imagine wading through such an enormous number of submissions?), I think that rumors of the slush pile’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
As recently as early last year, I was a slush pile girl myself. And it worked out pretty well for me.
I started out with a very small Southern publisher for my first book, A Dyeing Shame: Death at the Beauty Box in 2006.
Wanting to try my luck in the Big Leagues, I started researching. I decided trying out with the Medium Leagues made the best sense. Midnight Ink, a well-respected mystery subsidiary of Llewellyn Worldwide, was accepting manuscripts. Amazingly enough (at the time), they wanted full manuscripts. I read this part several times. Full manuscripts. Mailed to them. This was unbelievable enough to give it a go. Plus, I respected the award-winning mystery authors who were published by them.
I took an online course on synopses (MI did want a one-page synopsis along with the full.) I tore up a bunch of synopses but finally got one I thought would work. I mailed it off…the synopsis and the huge sheaf of papers that made up Pretty is as Pretty Dies, single-sided.
I believe in covering my bases. I sent cover letters and synopses or queries to other publishers for the manuscript—including Penguin’s Berkley Prime Crime.
I sent queries to agents (mainly online queries, but probably ten mailed ones.) I was rejected a bazillion times.
Months later? Many months later? I found out that Midnight Ink wanted Pretty. I was delighted! They had a great plan for marketing, cover, etc.
I continued receiving rejections for Pretty from other publishers. No one else asked for a full, so I didn’t tell anyone that the manuscript was off the table.
I queried agents again.
More rejections from agents—even with the contract in hand.
I read on blogs—particularly Pub Rants—(thanks, Kristin!) how to negotiate a boilerplate contract. I counter-offered and did the best I could under the circumstances. It worked out well.
Roughly a month after negotiating my contract with Midnight Ink, I heard from my current agent. The system just takes a long time, y’all. They’re all inundated with emails and mail.
My Midnight Ink editor and I were about two months into revisions when I heard from Penguin. Pretty is as Pretty Dies had, being an unsolicited manuscript, gone into the slush pile. What’s worse? The editor that I had sent my original query and first 30 pages to had left Penguin at the time my email arrived at their office.
The other editors had taken on that editor’s slush pile, working through hers as well as their own.
Months later? They’d discovered Pretty—and were interested. After some quick checking, they’d found the Publisher’s Weekly blurb saying that Midnight Ink had it under contract.
Amazingly, this editor emailed me to congratulate me on my deal with Midnight Ink and to say that they were sorry they couldn’t have published it at Penguin.
I was absolutely stunned. Could I pitch them another series? I asked. I’d come up with one soon. I loved working with Midnight Ink—and it would be great to work with Penguin too.
At that moment? I had no series ideas at all. I was caught completely off-guard.
But they were interested in a series based in Memphis. An epicurean mystery with a Southern accent. I could submit the first three chapters and they’d see if my vision for such a series would work out.
It did work out. And thankfully I had my excellent agent helping to guide me through the waters this time.
But neither series was pitched to them by my agent. Both got to my editors through the slush pile. In both 2008 and 2009. My process of being pulled out of it reflected a tremendous amount of luck in the form of timing. I hope it also reflects the amount of research and effort I put into it…despite the rejections I received. Perseverance goes a long way with writing.
I know what the Wall Street Journal is getting at. It’s a tough world out there. Publishers aren’t able to hire the manpower to wade through the slush. Agents are facing layoffs at their agencies, too.
But there’s still slush. And there are still folks out there reading it. God bless them.
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I did some blog housekeeping Sunday. Do you read Mystery Writing is Murder? Are you listed in the blogroll in my sidebar? Also, I’m opening up Fridays (soon) for guest posts on ‘writing process.’ In addition, the blog is available for promo spots for authors with upcoming and new releases. For more information, please check the post: http://tinyurl.com/ybm3s58
Elizabeth – Thanks for sharing your story with us. I think that most of us are not as aware as we could be of what really goes on with our manuscripts and query letters once they reach agents and publishers. The more we learn about the process, the better we can be at getting our work out there.
This sentence “I was rejected a bazillion times” encourages me and I must post in on a banner somewhere and have it put on a t-shirt to remind me that success can come after what appears to be much failure.
Another great post.
Thank you for sharing your journey, Elizabeth! You’re a lucky lady to have been discovered that way. (The book is terrific too, that can’t hurt!) :)
Good lessons for everyone: Keep submitting, be patient, be persistent. Something good may come out of it!
Thanks for an inside look at your publishing journey. I’m always fascinated at how different the journey is for each of us!
They say if you can’t wallpaper a room with rejections, you’re not a real writer. Elephant-hide skin is one of the job requirements. But the love of writing–the need to write keeps us going.
I’ve been ‘orphaned’ many times by the fluidity of the industry.
It is SO important to understand the ‘other’ side of writing. It’s a business. We sit on the creative side, but publishing is an entirely different world.
I’m glad that you didn’t listen to the rejections and continued your journey to have “Pretty is as Pretty Dies” published. You show that you can’t just submit to one place and sit back to be accepted. You have to keep at it and in the end it plays off.
What an inspiring story, Elizabeth. Thanks so much for sharing it. Perseverance is truly the key ingredient writers need.
Karen
Sometimes it seems to be nothing but a giant Catch 22, you need an agent to submit to a publisher, but you need a publisher to show interest before you can get an agent…grrr.
Thanks for sharing your story, Elizabeth. I plan to follow more or less the same path. Let’s hope.
Elspeth
This is a very inspirational story. Thank you so much. Sometimes it feels very lonely out here in the desert wandering with manuscript in hand searching, searching…
You’re right, there’s still a lot of small – mid sized publishers going through slush piles.
Good for you for not giving up!
Long live slush! I got my agent through Twitter and my blog, but I had many requests for partials and fulls from my slush queries.
What a great story you have! Your writing is clearly exceptional if two reputable publishers plucked it out of the slush pile. Great post. I love your blog. ;-)
I’m with Helen Ginger- I would love to hear more on how you countered offers. There is so much to learn, thanks for sharing your experiences to help us novice writers!
Thank you for sharing your story. It gives us all some hope that our writing will catch the eye of some wonderful soul who is wading through a slush pile!
Elizabeth, I so enjoyed reading about your experience. And I loved that you countered their offer and did it yourself. I’d love to hear more about that. I seriously doubt that many new authors would have done that. As always, a great post.
Helen
Straight From Hel
I’m a proud product of slush piles myself! (wink)
Marvin D Wilson
My manuscript is resting in a slush pile as we speak — thanks, I needed this.
As always, an interesting post. I was most surprised to learn about the counter offer…what chutzpah–in a good way of course. I woulda gone groveling. HA! You are my hero.
Best Wishes Galen.
Imagineering Fiction Blog
Margot–You’re right. And have our queries, synopses, and manuscripts in standard form really helps, too.
Teresa–I can’t even say how many times it was. Let’s say 40 agent rejections? Maybe more–just for the “Pretty” round of queries. “Pretty” itself was rejected probably 20 times by publishers….at least…in the 2 separate sets of querying that I did. This is just for the one manuscript. I’ve written many other things that were rejected before that.
Jan–It really is, isn’t it? There’s no feeling like standing at the mailbox and seeing an envelope in there from an agent or publisher–and getting that bad feeling that it’s not good news.
Diane–And then you can build on the smaller publishers to get an agent so you can write for bigger publishing houses.
Stacy–I do feel really, really lucky. And I’m so glad for those folks who read through these piles of slush and hand things that are worth a look over to the editors.
Alan–Absolutely! Research and perseverance. Perseverance sounds better than stubbornness. :)
Jody–It’s really different for everybody..which is encouraging, I think.
Terry–I still have a lot of my rejections in a drawer. Not sure what they’re still doing in there! But yes, it’s good to hold onto that determination. And a lot of the rejections had some good feedback for revision ideas.
Mason–Multiple submissions (well-targeted) seems to be the best route–and maybe an *expectation* of rejection. It makes it easier when it comes (but keep revising and submitting while you’re receiving them.)
Karen–I think it’s the most important thing, really–to finish the first draft, to cobble together a better story during revisions, to research editors and agents, etc.
Helen–I didn’t feel extremely secure in counter-offering, but the more I read up on it, the more it sounded like the best thing to do on an offer with no agent. The boilerplate was pretty much an industry standard one, holding it up against others I found online. There were a couple of places that I thought I needed to counter–one was the initial advance, the other was some of the rights. There were some excellent resources online to help an unrepresented writer. I’ll try to dig those up and post them.
Marvin–We’re all products of slush. :)
Steph–You’re so welcome. Good luck in the slush!
Galen–I thanked them very nicely for the offer. Then, when the email with the offer came in, I waited 24 hours to respond. During those 24 hours, I read everything I could find online. I emailed back with the counter and they emailed ME back after another 24 hours (while, yes, I was sweating…but I was very polite through the whole thing) and they met me halfway on some things. I thought it worked out well..but I never want to negotiate a contract again! I was WAYYYY over my head.
Wow – it is so interesting to hear how the process worked for you!
Publishing does not work quickly :) I’m not surprised your work got found by a few editors. I really, really enjoyed Pretty is as Pretty Dies!
Thanks for sharing.
Wow Elizabeth, thank you for sharing this. It made me hopeful. :)
I love this story. I think it is amazing, and the fact that Penguin wanted it, once they finally GOT TO IT says a lot for your writing. (and perhaps points out a failing of vision on the middle men, if you had two PUBLISHERS but no AGENTS interested until there was a contract)
It’s my belief that slush probably works for genre fic some of the time because it is easier to target the right people. I think it’s harder for mainstream, but that is what it is.
It’s nice to hear from someone that has actually been through both sides. Great post.
ann
That’s an amazing and encouraging story. To be picked out of the slush pile twice!
Good for you, Elizabeth!
This is a very inspiring story. For me, it’s just more proof that GOOD books will get published. Even from slush.
Thanks!
Great post. I just attended a conference and one of agents said she prefers getting the real paper manuscript, and others don’t want paper. I think it’s important for the writer to do homework and find out what the agent they are targeting prefers.
This is an amazing story…I wish you would send it to the Wall Street Journal as another perspective. How encouraging, even if unlikely.
Elspeth–That was my take on it, too. That’s why I went with a medium publisher first. Big publishers wouldn’t have worked with me without an agent..I’m sure of that. But MI seemed happy to do it.
Carolyn–You definitely should be hopeful. You put all the time and research in, too!
Debra–I’ve seen videos on YouTube of the slush piles. They are HUGE. And most of it isn’t stuff we’d want to read. It’s amazing we both had people find us there.
Judy–I’ll write on it tomorrow. :)
Hart–I do think it’s easier to find a publisher than it is to find an agent. At least it was for me! And you’re right–for genre writing it’s easier to fit a niche and get discovered in the piles.
Janel–I feel really sorry for those folks–and grateful that they put up with all they do!
Ann–Thanks so much!
Alex==Thanks! :)
Elana–It takes a lot of work on both ends for the writer and the editor/agent to find each other…but it does happen.
Jemi–Thanks! It’s such a slow process. I think they’re just inundated–and with manuscripts that aren’t even serious documents (manuscripts in different colored font, manuscripts that come with home baked cookies, etc.)
Elizabeth–You are so RIGHT. My MI editor likes doing everything via mail…which is so funny to me! But everybody is different so we should check to see what everyone’s preferences are.
Suzanne–I think there are definitely things a writer can do to improve their chances in the slush. I followed all the guidelines, critiqued my ms a million times, etc. It does help.
Lorel-Thanks! :)
You are such an encourager, ESCRA (my new name for you.) Thanks for sharing this.
This is an excellent, hopeful, success story. Thank you so much for sharing it. Your journey is so interesting.
What an inspiring story, Elizabeth. Thanks for sharing it.