publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

, a slush pile is a set of unsolicited

query letter A query letter is a formal letter sent by a writer to magazine editors, literary agents Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially nov ...

s or

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

s that have either been directly sent to a publisher by an

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

, or which have been delivered via a

literary agent A literary agent is an agent who represents writers and their written works to publishers, theatrical producers, film producers, and film studios, and assists in sale and deal negotiation. Literary agents most often represent novelists, screenwr ...

representing the author who may or may not be familiar to the publisher. The responsibility of sifting through slush piles is usually reserved either to editor assistants or to outside contractors called

publisher's reader A publisher's reader or first reader is a person paid by a publisher or book sales club to read manuscripts A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as op ...

s 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 smaller publishers 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. In 2008,

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

introduced a website,

authonomy HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the " Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. HarperCollins is ...

, 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 YouWriteOn was launched in January 2006 as an online writing circle to help new writers gain critical feedback on their work and improve their chances of getting published. Each month, YouWriteOn's top ten rated opening chapters receive feedback f ...

acts as a slush pile filter for

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

Orion Publishing Group Orion Publishing Group Ltd. is a UK-based book publisher. It was founded in 1991 and acquired Weidenfeld & Nicolson the following year. The group has published numerous bestselling books by notable authors including Ian Rankin, Michael Connell ...

and

Bloomsbury Publishing Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. Bloomsbury's head office is located on Bedford Square in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a US publishing office located in ...

References

Publishing Literary terminology {{Publish-stub