Publishing Slush Pile Meaning
By Mary Kole
Mary Kole is a former literary agent, freelance editor, writing teacher, author of Writing Irresistible Kidlit, and IP developer for major publishers, with over a decade in the publishing industry.
Some writers find themselves curious about slush pile meaning. What is a slush pile in publishing? Why does this term sound less than encouraging? Is a slush pile the only way you can get your book published? Let’s dive into slush pile meaning and clear up some of this confusion.
Slush Pile Meaning In Publishing
One of the easiest ways to work in the publishing industry is to become an intern or a reader at a publishing house or literary agency. These interns and entry-level assistants don’t generally get to work on their own projects. Instead, they shadow more senior editors (at publishers) and agents (at agencies). And one of their responsibilities is, invariably, reading the slush pile meaning that they have to sift through unagented submissions to see if any query letter or writing sample catches their attention. If it does, they will recommend that submission to a gatekeeper with decision-making power.
So that’s the slush pile: a digital mailbox of submissions that the literary agency or publisher opens themselves to, but has not specifically requested. The usual submission, at least for fiction and memoir, is a query letter, a writing sample of ten pages or three chapters (submission guidelines vary by agency or publisher), and sometimes a synopsis. Nonfiction projects are sometimes submitted with a book proposal and sample chapters.
Slush Pile Secrets
Even though literary agencies and publishers say they’re open to submissions via their slush pile meaning that writers can send in projects without needing an invitation, very few successful projects actually get a book deal this way.
A lot of writers end up connecting with literary agents and publishers at writing conferences or after previous submission were, leaving the door open. Coming in “cold” out of the slush pile and getting an offer of representation or a publishing contract. Yes, writing agents routinely find new clients from their submissions, but publishers that advertise that they accept unagented work also accept agented work—and that’s where most of their acquisitions come from. The dream of getting a book contract directly from a publisher by sending a submission happens very, very rarely.
Writing rejection is very common in the slush pile meaning that so many projects never make it past the inbox. Writers often wonder whether anyone is actually reviewing submissions. Is everything an automatic rejection? Is AI screening things? Nope! (Not yet, at least, in the case of AI—but it’s no wonder that people are fearfully wondering whether AI will replace creative writing.) The first line of defense in any slush pile is a free or underpaid intern or literary agency assistant. And they are looking for, at bare minimum, a query letter that sounds compelling and a writing sample that catches the eye.
Inside the Slush Pile
As a former literary agent, I once had a slush pile meaning an inbox specifically reserved for queries. (Some agents ask that writers use a submission form to contact them, but the end result is pretty much the same.) The projects that land in the slush range from very poorly written to promising, and they come in from folks who've been submitting for years, to those just beginning. It really is a strange and sometimes hilarious place.
The state of the slush pile fluctuates daily. Sometimes, the slush seems promising and full of intriguing material. Other days, nothing really manages to hook a reader. There appears to be no discernible pattern. Whenever a literary agent or intern or reader sits down to go through the slush, they need to be in the right mindset and open to whatever comes, otherwise, the slush pile can be excruciating. (I’d read mine a few times a week, and usually after a lot of coffee, so that I could focus.)
No matter who reads through the piles of slush, they'll inevitably experience what I call, in jest, "slush psychosis". Plowing through lackluster and hard-to-read queries (and a lot of them really are terrible, which always surprises me, because query letters are supposed to be your best effort at getting published) can be exhausting. Yet in this sea of mediocrity, there are those occasional gems in the slush pile meaning submissions that are well-crafted, that clearly present their premise, and that stand out from the rest.
These queries get attention, no doubt. But is it because they're exceptional and "going-to-be-a-book" good? Or simply because they sparkle against their sub-par surroundings? Is there slush pile meaning or just slush pile psychosis? For fun, let’s get a bit deeper into the psychology of reading slush.
How a Literary Agent Tackles the Slush Pile
In order to stay sharp and give every submission a fair chance when I was sifting through my slush pile, I would make sure to follow these rules:
Set the mood. If I was feeling bad, irritable, exhausted, or frustrated, I wouldn’t even start reading. Slush has a tendency to amplify these emotions, and it would be too difficult to properly evaluate each submission. So, I always take a moment to check in with myself before I start going through the slush pile.
Limit slush time to an hour. Whenever something used to catch my eye, instead of jumping to request it, I placed it in a Maybe Pile for a second look.
Take a moment. After sifting through the slush pile, I'd make sure to come back to the Maybe Pile with fresh eyes on a different day, ready to take a second look. Those Maybe Pile queries would then turn into writing rejections or manuscript requests.
If I felt that I was devouring lots of submissions in any given time period, I would also make sure to "cleanse my palate" by reading published books. If I didn’t do this, I would tend to become a little too lenient. To keep my reading standards as sharp as a blade, I’d realign myself by reading like a writer and diving into published works.
Every agent and publisher has a different slush pile style. These gatekeepers don’t generally want to miss out on anything incredible or to be unjust to the authors who trust them with their work. Reading submissions is a human exercise and humans are imperfect, therefore, there is no way to control every facet of this process. I would make a conscious effort to manage the slush pile meaning that each submission got a fair read. Beyond that, I was at the mercy of whatever came in.
Did I overlook any future bestsellers or reject projects that went on to sell? Absolutely. Did I end up requesting certain projects in a state of slush psychosis? Of course!
This is a common problem all literary agents face. And I'm not sure whether these issues will ever completely go away. Writing and agenting and publishing are very subjective, right down to slush pile meaning. So get yourself in there and see what happens, now that you understand a bit more about what goes on behind the scenes!
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Click here to purchase Irresistible Query Letters, my book on query letters, including over forty examples with comprehensive notes on each one. There’s a ton of submission advice, best practices, and insider information in these pages, and you’ll really enjoy seeing what other writers are doing in the slush.