HD For Indies

From Anne Frank to Stephenie Meyer: The Slush Pile - WSJ.com

an interesting read about the results of democratization of media - anyone can get "published" in terms of getting their voice out there, but in terms of getting Published, capital P, are sinking ever faster. Since the barriers to entry are so much lowered, and the publics appetite hasn't increased proportionately for content they'll pay for, the value of unsolicited work has fallen to effectively zero.

Article opens with:

In 1991, a book editor at Random House pulled from the heaps of unsolicited manuscripts a novel about a murder that roils a Baltimore suburb. Written by a first-time author and mother named Mary Cahill, "Carpool" was published to fanfare. Ms. Cahill was interviewed on the "Today" show. "Carpool" was a best seller.

That was the last time Random House, the largest publisher in the U.S., remembers publishing anything found in a slush pile. Today, Random House and most of its major counterparts refuse to accept unsolicited material.

and later continues with:

The agent says she receives 30 unsolicited e-mails a day from writers and people she doesn't know who are pushing unknown writers, and she hits "delete" without opening.


The Paris Review still publishes unsolicited work, but success odds are 0.008%...of getting a short story published. Once. In a magazine.

Same kinda thing for movie/TV deals - most producers won't look at unsolicited work - there's just too much out there.

Read on, this is interesting stuff and good to know.

If you are about getting your voice out there, you CAN - but can you get anyone to read/see it. Put it up on YouTube, just don't expect to get any money off of it even if it gets a million views. Put up a blog, but don't expect to get rich off of it - even in my best month of HDforIndies.com, I think I made about $800 bucks off of Google AdSense from folks clicking on the ads.

-mike