Many of you may have already heard of The Slush Pile Reader. Brainchild of Swedish-born Johanna and Pascal Denize, The Slush Pile Reader is designed to deliver completed manuscripts directly into the hands of a reading public…before the manuscripts are even published. The idea is to “let the public decide” what should or shouldn’t make it to the shelf. By casting their votes, readers get to have a role in what Slush Pile will consider for publication. Interesting, no?
I see two immediate flaws, however. One of which is the most obvious: What the hell will my book look like when it’s published by a company owned by people who’ve never been in the publishing industry before? (The Denizes have had experience in business development, and their partner, one Henrick Kemkes, has worked in Web development.) But the question remains: Will the book actually come out looking like it was printed and bound at Kinko’s?
The second, probably more futile question, is: Who are these “readers?” Because, let’s face it, if the average reader is actually an average reader, then (s)he will probably prefer to read published manuscripts, just as the average reader almost always has. Lord knows there are a few of us out there who risk our friends’ pride by offering to read their work (always an interesting transaction), but how many people out there are willing to extend such a favor to a complete stranger? How many of us really want to dash the hopes of a struggling writer by voting NO against them? (I imagine heaps of John K Tooles scattered in all directions, as far as the horizon.) Furthermore, there’s this nettling question of just who these “average readers” will really be.
Will these readers be work-from-home readers who have a lot of time on their hands, and figure that they may as well use their time to offer their valuable opinions to aspiring writers? Or will they be hoaxters who want nothing more than to pin the writer against a wall and rail them with negative votes, just for the sheer hell of it? No, what’s most likely is this — The Slush Pile Reader’s integral “audience” will most likely be us. The writers. It seems painfully obvious. It’ll be nothing more than an anonymous writer’s workshop where some people will actually be nice, constructive, et cetera; others will be competitive, shouting out big NO’s, simply because someone else did the same to them; still others will be wrought with despair at criticisms or taking advice from others a little too often. And so on. Most of us know what goes on in some workshops, and it seems to me that Slush Pile will be no exception.
Then again, I could be powerfully wrong. Perhaps we should all register and just see what happens. Someday we could have a book on the shelf that looks as good as something printed on an HP2575 Inkjet. And we shall hope that they don’t plan to name their “publishing house” after the website.
