Slush Pile

My main job at work is to go through every manuscript submission that gets sent to Deseret Book, whether by mail or email. We call these stacks and stacks of manuscripts the "slush" pile. When I first started working, I inherited the slush pile from my co-worker, and my new cubicle area started drowning in unopened envelopes in less than a week. At one point, I could hardly get to my chair! Luckily, I found some time to go through the piles and get the submission under control (some what).

These are the piles I inherited, before they got too out of control. Believe me, the slush piles got worse.

It sometimes amazes people when I tell them I only spend about 3 minutes on each manuscript submission, but it's the truth. Every manuscript gets logged, and then I read over the first page or two (or skim over the entire manuscript if it's a children's story). And yes--I really CAN tell if the manuscript is worth publishing or not after 3 minutes. Not that I have the final say. I'm the first eyes on everything we receive, and I say, "Yes, this has potential," or "No, send a rejection." But anything I pass on goes through a lot of hoops before the final decision of publication is made.

I'm amazed by what people send in to get published sometimes! I'm constantly entertained or bewildered. And looking over so many submission makes me even more paranoid as a writer. I want my manuscript to be as close to perfect as possible when I submit in the future so other editors/product developers like myself won't have obvious reasons to add my story to the rejection pile.