As a publisher, I find the whole concept to be a bit odd. Publishers have enough stuff coming in that they don't need MORE slush to go through. The exceptions are very small and/or very new publishers, who can put in the labor of love hours reading submissions looking for that diamond in the rough.
On the plus side, it appears that Bowker has put in place various filtering tools to make manuscript selection easier for publishers. And a publisher can also forward all unsolicited submissions to the system, thus getting rid of all those piles of paper around the office. It seems their goal is a centralized submission system for all publishers, which I'm not sure I like.
I'll probably sign us up for the service (since it's supposedly free to publishers; still looking for the catch). I just want to see what it's like.
Interesting that agents aren't part of the picture. That's a plus for a writer who is accepted, I suppose, as it's one less slice out of the pie. But many publishers don't accept unagented submissions; what will their approach be to this? I'm also unclear on whether agents can submit proposals on behalf of authors.
I do, however, feel bad for submitters. You only get to submit a proposal, and for $99 you could print & mail a dozen targeted proposals directly to publishers. Part of me (the cynical part) wonders if this is partly an effort to make writers do less work researching who to send their work to and force publishers to do more work sorting through manuscripts to find what fits their model.
Must be lunchtime.
