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In publishing, a slush pile is a set of unsolicited or that have either been directly sent to a publisher by an author, or which have been delivered via a literary agent representing the author who may or may not be familiar to the publisher.Mike Resnick. "Editor's Page: 'Slush'" Jim Baen's Universe v.2, #2 (August 2007) The responsibility of sifting through slush piles is usually reserved either to editor assistants or to outside contractors called publisher's readers or "first readers". If the reader finds something of interest and can convince a senior editor to accept it, they may earn credit.
Most agents and major publishing houses do not accept unsolicited manuscripts and slush piles are on average usually regarded as undesirable in many literary circles due to the large number of both aspiring and former writers who often produce content of unsatisfactory quality. However, this is not always the case with many Small press or independent editors who are often open to both inexperienced and formerly established writers—both of whom may be able to create original content for the publisher and potentially turn a profit.
The 1976 novel Ordinary People was the first manuscript accepted by Viking Press from the slush pile in 27 years. Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October was published from the Naval Institute Press slush pile.
In the early 1980s, Doubleday decided to no longer accept submissions of unsolicited manuscripts, citing the time and physical resources the practice took up.
In 2008, HarperCollins introduced a website, authonomy, to manage and exploit the slush pile from a web-based perspective, but it was closed in 2015 because writers were gaming the system. Website Youwriteon acts as a slush pile filter for Random House, Orion Publishing Group and Bloomsbury Publishing.
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