TOR, anyone?

Not yet, but Tor is at the top of my list of Publishers I Dream About. Ask Uncle Jim (aka James D. Macdonald) in the Writing Novels forum. He's been published by Tor numerous times.

Here's a thread in the Novel writing forum that discusses Tor:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10785

I'm with Tor and their waiting list is indeed long. We had an agent first so it wasn't too long of a wait, but you might want to pop over to this thread too so you can see for yourself what a slush pile looks like AT Tor (BTW, Tor isn't all capitalized. It's actually a real word -- it means pinnacle or peak, which is why their symbol is the mountain)


Tor Slush Pile

Good luck! It's worth the wait. They're super people over there. I just love my editor!

My experience

I submitted a partial of my first novel in May of 2000. I got a request for the full manuscript two weeks later. I received the (well-deserved) rejection that December.

Cathy C said:

(BTW, Tor isn't all capitalized. It's actually a real word -- it means pinnacle or peak, which is why their symbol is the mountain)

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In Britain it's usually a medium-sized hill in south-west England (tor being a dialect-word from that area) - see, for example, Glastonbury Tor.

I recently sent the first three chapters of a work to Tor. That was in April and I haven't heard back from them yet. But the middle of this month is Month Three, and according to their website the minimum I should have to be waiting is four months.

I'm glad they're taking their time. I'd rather a company take four months to a couple years to reject a manuscript and know they looked at it, than have one accept a work after only a couple weeks and later find out that company will publish virtually anything.

I've heard from people who've been waiting two years or even more to hear back from Tor. IMO, it's simply not worth submitting to any of the SF/fantasy imprints without an agent, even those like Tor that will look at unagented manuscripts. The timeframes involved are just too long--and when your ms. is looked at, it is unlikely to get the kind of careful editorial consideration it would if it came from a good agent. It'll probably be an intern or an assistant glancing through the first few pages, or a slush party where a bunch of editors sit down and say "OK, guys. We have 500 submissions and five hours. Let's get through them all!"

Things do get bought through publishers' slush piles. Editors love to talk about their slush pile purchases, because it make them feel good. And that's great. But most books that sell to Tor and others sell through agents.

- Victoria

victoriastrauss said:

It'll probably be an intern or an assistant glancing through the first few pages, or a slush party where a bunch of editors sit down and say "OK, guys. We have 500 submissions and five hours. Let's get through them all!"

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(I'm not sure what happened but I posted in reply to this and the post disappeared...hopefully it won't show up twice...)

Someone in another thread (the rejection club thread) said that they met a Tor editor at a recent event and he said that high school and college interns go through slush pile manuscripts exactly as you described--sitting in a room around a large table.

I spent last weekend at WesterCon in Calgary. Tom Doherty and David Hartwell of Tor were there and I attended a panel of theirs. What Victoria describes above is almost exactly what David Hartwell said when asked about how they deal with slush. It is likely an unsolicited manuscript will be evaluated by an intern, some of whom are high school students.

However, Mr. Hartwell was kind enough to offer this tip: examine Tor titles that you think your work is similar to. On the copyright page (usually) you should find the name of the editor who worked on that book. Send your submission to that editor. This will bypass the pile of manuscripts that were not sent to a specific editor, and increase the chance that it will be evaluated by someone who is not an intern, possibly the editor themselves. One caveat: be sure to contact Tor to make sure the editor is still working for them. Mr. Hartwell said they'll be happy to tell you.