Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Slush Pile


The slush pile. It's talked about and you may have read about it. Editors rather burn it, writers fear it. So I thought it would be fun to show some pictures of slush piles from different publishing houses.







Chronicle Books- note: each bin is known to hold up to 100 picture book manuscripts. (My middle grade novel is in there somewhere. Can you find it?)





Tor Books











Akashic Books







From Absolute Writers







An Annual Manuscript Bonfire? Click here.







This one took up a whole intern's cubicle











9 comments:

Kimbra Kasch said...

It's kind of sad to see dreams relegated to the bottom of a bin - forgotten or abandoned until the annual bonfire :(

Mary Witzl said...

Oh dear God. Just think of all that work, all the hopes and dreams, the brow-furrowing, lip-chewing, stay-up-all-night angst...

Glad I don't have to read through all those, though. And it is a mercy that most people who provided the tinder will never learn what happened to it.

Unknown said...

Whoa. That is crazy!

Jacqui said...

I used to file actor's resumes for a professional theater; this reminded me of that. I'm glad I don't have to file them all!

C.R. Evers said...

Yikes!

That explains the form rejections!!!

Wowza!

Christy

Doda said...

Yikes. Now that is scary!

Christina Farley said...

Yeah, it really puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

The bonfire one was a bit disturbing.

I guess you can also look at it when you do get a personal rejection, you know they effort that the editor took to make it.

Rachel Hamby said...

UGH, that's depressing.

Kate Fall said...

I love those pictures. It reminds me to register for an SCBWI conference!

And I missed your Christmas list, which I also love. Nobody ever gets me any of those things *sniff*. Although my DH always gets me a stick drive for backups.