More tales from the slush pile

After that depressing post about the blahness of the slush pile, and how the editors don't really NEED to find your masterpiece in it but they'd really like to if only it was easier to wade through the muck to find it....well after THAT post I want you to eavesdrop with me for a moment.

On the other side of the room, with my back to the editors, I am work work working away on something else. I can't remember. It was either a post for the blackdogbytes blog or line editing a nearly finished book or reading another and trying to come up with poetic and haunting titles for it...it was one of those. While I had my back turned, the two editors were bracing themselves to attack the slush filled email together.

They started with my "Under Consideration" folder.

A couple of things happened. If you say in your cover letter that you are published, they are going to Google you. They might even check Nielsen to see how many copies you have sold (so don't lie!). If they think your work sounds remotely interesting, they're also going to Google you. If they think your work means surely you must be a crackpot, then that will make for the funnest Google ever.

There were giggles behind me. And then I realised it was because, like me, they liked a story. It was cute, they could see it had something, a spark. One particular story had a cast of international characters and that is something ELSE Black Dog are trying to do, represent a real Australia, which are not all white people.

So they liked it and set it aside. Then there was another one (one I loved) with totally attitude filled illustrations that they printed out to make sure to show the publisher.

And there was another from the physical slush that they liked too.

So there's all this stuff HAPPENING. Books are ACTUALLY under consideration, not just sitting in an inbox waiting to be read.

But you'll never know about all this stuff that's happening. They might discuss your book, talk about how they could market it, where it would fit in the marketplace, which types of shops would carry it.

And you might be at home getting annoyed at how fricking long it takes for them to finally reject you.

In the end, these books might not get published by bdb, lord knows the stats aren't looking good, but you never know.

Stuff is happening. The editors are talking. And it might be about you.