The Agony of Acquisitions: Notes from a Former Receptor of Slush

When I look back on the many years I spent staring at a stack of manila envelopes with SASEs coming out my ears, it pains my inner control freak. My employers were paying me to be a sponge, a passive receptor of slush. Sure, as an acquisitions editor, much of my time was spent searching for authors at conferences, or skimming trade journals, or listening to the gentle buzz of the blogosphere, but much of it was an exercise in futility.

I truly knew desperation when I worked in the children’s book market. In that niche, the competition is so fierce and the best sellers so few that it’s hard not to pull your hair out when you dive into the slush pile. And to compound the problem, so many, shall we say, “inexperienced” writers think that crafting a picture book is a piece of cake. Keep it short and throw in some talking animals and you’re set, right? Or: “I have a grandson who just loves it when I tell this story.” And no, including a lock of that grandson’s hair with your manuscript isn’t going to make me weep with warm-hearted joy.

At the last children’s publisher I worked for, our inability to find standout authors shut us down. And it was a great job. The best I’ve ever had. And now, alas, it is gone. (Anyone out there in the same boat?)

Since then, I’ve been on a mission. A “pubmission” if you will (har har). What acquisitions editors need—what the publishing industry as a whole needs—is a way to transform our method of discovering new writing talent from a passive to a more active process. The technology has existed for years. Other industries and individuals use it all the time. Think about CareerBuilder, Match.com, even PRWeb. If I’m an employer looking for a specific employee to hire, I’m not going to use my preciously limited time to scour the entire Internet looking for the right person, or pay hundreds of dollars to attend every trade show that features relevant speakers, or hope that by chance someone interested in my company sends me the perfect resume based on my company’s About Us web page. That’s absurd. I’m going to perform a targeted search using Elance or Monster.com or some other online database that helps me filter out the noise.

Pubmission is the new tool that filters out the noise for acquisitions editors. Sure, you can still receive submissions directly (though you can quickly see all of your submissions in one sortable table), but it also lets you search specifically for the things you want to add to your list. As the volume of writers and publishers on the site grows, editors will have the entire database at their fingertips. They won’t have to wait for the perfect submission to magically appear in their slush piles. All they’ll need to do is perform a targeted search. And it doesn’t matter if the writer only sent his work to your competitor. If he submitted it to the general database, you’ll have access to it, too.

I only wish that I’d had this tool a few years ago. It certainly would have cut down on my supply of children’s hair. (Ew, creepy.)

Publishers: Check out our new demo video to learn more about how Pubmission can help you get out from under the slush pile.