Bye Bye, Slush Pile Dream

Dungeon Geek · Jan 21, 2010

CAWriter said:
Have you been to conferences? I'll admit I write in a niche (although a fairly large one) and attend primarily conferences in that niche. I've attended one leading conference for the past 15 year (and been on the faculty, etc). In recent years, talking with agents, they have all mentioned that the quality of attendee is so high that they find themselves with too many good choices. These agents (and editors) would completely disagree that the quality of what they see at that conference is "no better than the writers sitting on their butts at home." If you read any number of agent blogs, I bet you'd find that sentiment expressed. There is a general consensus that it DOES make a difference when someone takes their work seriously enough to pay money to show up to learn from industry pro's, take that to heart, apply it, and then meet with an agent or editor about it. You're right, it is a numbers game, and the numbers favor those who take some extra steps/put in extra effort to make their work the best it can be.

And if their livelihood depended completely upon the slush pile, then there wouldn't be agencies, such as there are, who only take new clients by referral or invitation (those invitations being extended after meeting at a conference or trade show, or, to a lesser degree, achieving notariety of some sort).

We can agree to disagree. I disagree with your foundational premise that slush piles are where the predominant number of "diamonds" reside.

It would be interesting to get the resident agents to weigh in on this.

Yeah...we need some agents to weigh in on this. Anyway, my feeling is that there are a lot of very determined writers who, for whatever reason, aren't very good. These writers are just as likely to turn up at a conference because they do in fact take themselves very seriously. Look, the conference is appealing because it seems like a possible good alternative to the ugliness of slush. But in my opinion, the numbers are just too small to make it a viable alternative. Otherwise, agents would be closing the submission doors for good and just attending conferences. I don't see that happening. Do you? I'm sure some agents trawl the conferences and the web for writer blogs, but it's just a side deal. There are plenty of serious, talented writers who can't travel to conferences for whatever reasons. Can agents afford to brush them off? In my view, hell no. Neither can editors.

This idea of finding new blood at conferences only, and shutting down the slush piles, is old and crusty. Writers conferences aren't new. They've been around for ages. So why didn't the slush pile die back in the 80s or 90s? Or five years ago? Heck, the Internet has been going strong for years now. But the slush piles are still open--and not just among agents. There are plenty of publishing houses that still allow unsolicited manuscripts as well.

blacbird · Jan 22, 2010

Dungeon Geek said:
There are plenty of serious, talented writers who can't travel to conferences for whatever reasons. Can agents afford to brush them off?

Most agents? Yes.

caw

Dungeon Geek · Jan 22, 2010

blacbird said:
Most agents? Yes.

caw

Wow! Most of them can afford to brush off a bunch of serious, talented writers? Well then agents got it made, man! Heck, I should become an agent. I'll have talented writers coming out my wazoo.

Heck, I'd keep my slush pile closed most of the year and just live the good life. So where do I sign up? :partyguy:

Libbie · Jan 22, 2010

I would just like to point out that I am going to be a debut novelist, and I just received an offer of representation from a major agency. I got there via the slush pile. So it does happen -- at least as of 21 January 2010.

Keep your chins and hopes up, people!

icerose · Jan 22, 2010

The vast majority of agents always have their slush pile open. The only time I have seen it closed is if they're having a baby, or their lists are so full of good clients they are forced to focus on the clients they already have and do right by them rather than keep piling up the books they have to try and sell.

djf881 · Jan 22, 2010

I don't think agents get a lot of clients at conferences, and I am very skeptical of the idea that conferences are a better route to representation than querying.

If you are a good writer and you write a good query, and you query to a number of appropriate agents, you will get partial or full manuscript requests. If you pay to go to a conference to do face-to-face pitches, you might also get requests. At that point, you're in the same pile. So what have you paid for?

One thing I think is true is that writers who have not been able to get any manuscript requests because their queries and sample pages are weak may get some manuscript requests through face-to-face pitches. Maybe the flaws that are clear in their pages aren't evident in their pitch, or maybe the agents request a lot of materials at conferences because they don't like rejecting someone to her face.

But to get an offer of representation, you have to be submitting one of the best handful manuscripts the agents get pitched that year, and people who are racking up dozens of rejections and no requests probably aren't. If you are good enough to get an agent, you can get an agent by querying.

Has anybody on here gotten an agent at a conference?

kullervo · Jan 22, 2010

djf881 said:
Has anybody on here gotten an agent at a conference?

Nobody gets an agent for showing up anywhere. They get an agent because their book is good and the agent thinks they can sell it. Period. They may have happened to meet the agent at the conference, but it was the book that did it, not the meeting.

djf881 · Jan 22, 2010

CAWriter said:
There is a general consensus that it DOES make a difference when someone takes their work seriously enough to pay money to show up to learn from industry pro's, take that to heart, apply it, and then meet with an agent or editor about it. You're right, it is a numbers game, and the numbers favor those who take some extra steps/put in extra effort to make their work the best it can be.

If that was true, they would encourage you to list your conference attendance in your queries. Agents do not want to know how hard you worked. They want to know how well you write and how good your book is.

And if their livelihood depended completely upon the slush pile, then there wouldn't be agencies, such as there are, who only take new clients by referral or invitation (those invitations being extended after meeting at a conference or trade show, or, to a lesser degree, achieving notariety of some sort).

Agents that don't take queries don't take pitches at conferences either, and agents who are interested in unknown, debut authors tend to take queries.

Amarie · Jan 22, 2010

djf881 said:
Has anybody on here gotten an agent at a conference?

I don't know about AW, but I posted this survey a few weeks ago. Of the 55 debut 2010 YA/MG authors who participated, I think about 6 got agents through conferences.

I've been to many conferences, even though I got my agent through a slush pile query, and I would say conferences are useful if you have a good query that is getting no requests or you know you have a manuscript that doesn't fit into a neat genre category. In the first case, a face to face meeting with an agent might help you figure out why you are getting no requests, and in the second, agents almost always agree to read 30-50 pages, so you can at least get your manuscript in front of someone.

ETA: Sometimes good queries get no requests, because the premise isn't interesting enough, unique enough, or the type of story isn't popular at the moment.

http://community.livejournal.com/10_ers/377542.html

Libbie · Jan 22, 2010

kullervo said:
Nobody gets an agent for showing up anywhere. They get an agent because their book is good and the agent thinks they can sell it. Period. They may have happened to meet the agent at the conference, but it was the book that did it, not the meeting.

Right. Conference pitch vs. query pitch are just two of several ways to interest an agent in your book.

(I should point out that the other ways are either dependent on who you know, or frowned upon.)

CAWriter · Jan 22, 2010

Libbie said:
I would just like to point out that I am going to be a debut novelist, and I just received an offer of representation from a major agency. I got there via the slush pile. So it does happen -- at least as of 21 January 2010. Keep your chins and hopes up, people!

Hey! Congrats on your big news (way to slide it in there all subtle-like)!

This discussion probably goes to serve the point that writers MUST do their homework on the agents they submit to if they hope to be successful. Some may find a good percentage of their new clients via slushpile. Many (that I know personally), don't.

When I responded to this thread initially, I had just read Sandra Bishop's post (that I linked to above) and had this quote from her in mind:

And I think writers would even agree that digging through the slush pile is just not the most efficient place to look for such success.

blacbird · Jan 22, 2010

djf881 said:
Agents that don't take queries don't take pitches at conferences either

Not true. At least not by statements of many agents themselves, who list on websites or other media that they don't accept unsolicited queries, and acquire new authors via conferences or recommendations.

djf881 said:
and agents who are interested in unknown, debut authors tend to take queries.

Probably, but again, not categorically. And, regrettably, the percentage of agents saying that they don't accept unsolicited queries seems to be growing rapidly.

caw

wrangler · Jan 22, 2010

It doesn't change my approach at all...I'm not stopping until I get published AND I also want a book on the NY Times Best Seller List.

djf881 · Jan 22, 2010

blacbird said:
Not true. At least not by statements of many agents themselves, who list on websites or other media that they don't accept unsolicited queries, and acquire new authors via conferences or recommendations.

I don't think a lot of those agents who don't take queries are hearing pitches at conferences. Anyone who is looking to represent debut authors is going to be taking queries, and anyone who doesn't want new authors is not going to be hearing pitches at a conference.

Conference attendees are better than the average query, but the very best stuff probably isn't available at conferences. For example, top MFA grads probably aren't going to conferences. People who get lots of requests from their queries have no reason to go to conferences.

I'd be really interested to hear if there are any agented writers who made an initial contact at a conference and ended up getting an offer.

blacbird · Jan 22, 2010

Damn if I know. Why don't you ask 'em?

caw

CAWriter · Jan 22, 2010

djf881 said:
I'd be really interested to hear if there are any agented writers who made an initial contact at a conference and ended up getting an offer.

Ok, I'll admit my bias here. All of my success I'd attribute to conferences. At my first significant conference, I had two publishers (Thomas Nelson and Harper San Francisco) take my proposal back to committee. I got a publishing deal from that. (I secured an agent after the offer came; the Harper editor had suggested I get one. That agent came through a contact I had with someone in a different part of the business.)

My agent ultimately left the agency and when I went looking for a new agent, I made that contact through a conference as well. There were others I was invited to submit to and all of those were initially conference relationships, except the one with whom I'd been friends before she became an agent.

I could probably point you to more than a dozen writer blogs where the writer met their agent at a conference as well. Again, that may be unique to the CBA niche, but agents there will tell you they see more quality submissions at a conference than they do in their slush/query piles.

HapiSofi · Jan 22, 2010

That WSJ article is abominably stupid and misleading. I don't want to spend the next couple of hours dissecting it in detail. Maybe I'll say more about it later on. Right now, all I have to say is:

1. Notice how they didn't interview any editors at houses that still read slush, and didn't cite sources and specifics when they made assertions about them? Katherine Rosman knew what her story was before she researched it -- and she didn't do much research.

2. Throughout the story, she conflates reading practices in book publishing and the movie industry, without once acknowledging that they're very different industries with unrelated slush-reading practices. This renders her analysis and commentary meaningless.

3. Judith Guest and Stephenie Meyer didn't get offers from the first publishers and agents they contacted? Big deal. Not every book is for every reader. For example, I didn't like either of those first novels. If Katherine Rosman thinks they're so wonderful that no one could ever justly reject them, that's her problem.

HapiSofi · Jan 22, 2010

Okay, one more bitchy remark. I assume that if Katherine Rosman has a bee in her bonnet about rejections, it's for the usual reason.

Jamesaritchie · Jan 22, 2010

Darned few agents get many clients at conferences, and that isn't why most agents go to conferences. I doubt any good agent finds more than ten percent of her clients at conferences, and, in fact, a lot fewer agents go to conferences than most think. When they do go, it's usually for the money.

As for taking writing seriously, who cares? A good book is what sells, not the writer's attitude. I've been in and around publishing for thirty years now, and I've yet to hear an agent or an editor ask how seriously the writer takes his writing, or ask about the conferences he's attended. Either he has a good book, or he doesn't.

Nor has any agent or editor ever told me they see more quality at conferences than in slush. In fact, conference material is just slush that comes with a mouth attached. Most of it is horrible.

Slush piles do work, but slush piles ARE dying out. They simply are. When I first started writing, almost every publisher out there accepted manuscripts, and even almost all the agent accepted partials, rather than queries. This is no longer true.

blacbird · Jan 22, 2010

Jamesaritchie said:
Either he has a good book, or he doesn't.

Well, it mostly starts as: Either he has a good query, or he doesn't. If the latter, the book might as well not exist.

caw

ChristineR · Jan 22, 2010

I've never understood the advice about conferences. Don't agents get paid to go to those things, at least if they listen to pitches? They're not there to find slush, they're there to listen to pitches and give feedback. Hence they will spend time on pitches they think are useless, at least to themselves, give feedback, and collect the money. I'd think your chances at a conference would be worse, not better than standard slush. If the agent thinks your book is grand, but can't sell if for some reason, she won't waste her or your time on it if it's sent to her--in the time it takes for you to get to the conference, you can query ten agents, all of whom are probably more likely to take you on.

Now just getting good advice is a different matter, but again, I've never been convinced that you'll get better advice from a conference than from the various free and cheap sources out there.

HapiSofi · Jan 22, 2010

Jamesaritchie said:
As for taking writing seriously, who cares? A good book is what sells, not the writer's attitude. I've been in and around publishing for thirty years now, and I've yet to hear an agent or an editor ask how seriously the writer takes his writing, or ask about the conferences he's attended. Either he has a good book, or he doesn't.

True, true, true. There've been bestselling authors who've practically had to be kidnapped and held hostage to get them to deliver their next book. As long as the books (and their sales) repaid the effort, their attitude didn't matter.

ChristineR said:
I've never understood the advice about conferences. Don't agents get paid to go to those things, at least if they listen to pitches?

I can only speak as an editor, but I've never gotten more than airfare, a hotel room, and my meals for doing that gig at writers' conferences. In return, I worked nonstop all weekend, which is why my enthusiasm waned for going to them. I've heard rumors that there are conferences that give agents and editors a cut of the take. I've never been offered that.

They're not there to find slush, they're there to listen to pitches and give feedback.

Those are the aspects of it the conferences sell to attendees. If that were all that was going on, agents and editors wouldn't have much reason to go. Pitch sessions are like face-to-face slush.

Hence they will spend time on pitches they think are useless, at least to themselves, give feedback, and collect the money.

Just about all pitch sessions are useless, especially if you don't get to see a sample of the authors' actual writing. At best, they're like a live-action query letter.

I'd think your chances at a conference would be worse, not better than standard slush. If the agent thinks your book is grand, but can't sell if for some reason, she won't waste her or your time on it if it's sent to her--in the time it takes for you to get to the conference, you can query ten agents, all of whom are probably more likely to take you on.

I thought a lot of the attendees were mostly there for the morale boost.

Now just getting good advice is a different matter, but again, I've never been convinced that you'll get better advice from a conference than from the various free and cheap sources out there.

I did the best I could for the writers who pitched me their books, but we only had a few minutes to talk. IMO, they'd have done better to come to AW and read stuff like Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, or saved their money and gone to a more extended workshop.

Dungeon Geek · Jan 22, 2010

Jamesaritchie said:
Slush piles do work, but slush piles ARE dying out. They simply are. When I first started writing, almost every publisher out there accepted manuscripts, and even almost all the agent accepted partials, rather than queries. This is no longer true.

Are you factoring queries only into the slush pile, or just partials or fulls? It seems to me the query slush is still pretty deep.

Jamesaritchie · Jan 23, 2010

Dungeon Geek said:
Are you factoring queries only into the slush pile, or just partials or fulls? It seems to me the query slush is still pretty deep.

Just fulls and partials. This is what traditional slush piles always were. Queries may be slush, but they are not novels and partials, and you have to get through the query process before anyone will even consider your actual novel.

Even worse, most publishers who still have traditional slush plies almost never actually buy a novel from one. It made big news a few years ago when one large publisher did buy a novel from slush. . .the first one in ten years.

The way it works now, publishers simply do not need to hire first readers for slush, and they don't need to worry about rejecting slush unread. Actually buying a novel from slush is such a rarity today that even accepting slush is more about getting along with writers than with finding new writers.

Libbie · Jan 23, 2010

HapiSofi said:
Okay, one more bitchy remark. I assume that if Katherine Rosman has a bee in her bonnet about rejections, it's for the usual reason.

You're my fave.

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