Fifth Estate welcomes Daniel Clay

Very rarely do you hear publishers lauding the ‘slush pile’.

Anyone who has ever worked their way up from editorial assistant will have had to wrestle with the heap of unsolicited submissions at one time or another – and for the most part entirely fruitlessly. For if it’s true to say that everyone has at least one book in them, it can sometimes seem that this is exactly where these unwritten tomes should stay.

I’ve certainly done my time, sifting through everything from the diary of a cat (submitted as ‘non-fiction’) to a university thesis on African witchcraft – and have yet to discover any hidden gems myself.

And yet the publishing world is full of such legends — Man Booker winner D.B.C. Pierre was discovered on a slush pile, as were Tom Clancy, Martha Grimes and Val McDermid. As a result, we continue to believe in the possibility of that undiscovered work of genius with the same guilty optimism with which we once secretly believed in Father Christmas.

We spend hours, days, weeks, reading and responding to bizarre, ill-written and often utterly inappropriate submissions, and even longer trying to come up with better ways to do this – of which authonomy.com is one attempt.

There have always been detractors willing to suggest that we scrap the ’slushpile’ entirely. But to do so would, I think, be a great pity.

Not because thousands of bestsellers currently reach us this way — evidence, alas, does not support this theory beyond a very few instances — but because the slush pile represents much of what I, as an editor, love about publishing. The fact that great books inspire other writers, the fact that anyone who is able and willing to pick up a pen or punch a keyboard can write (even if the quality varies wildly), and the fact that we all work with books because we love them.

Publishing is, undeniably, a business. But it’s also at heart a romantic undertaking — one inspired by a love of good writing, great stories, scholarship, insight and opinion. It is a lively, engaging and inspiring industry to work in, but it would not survive without the optimism of authors and publishers who believe in the potential of the books they publish – and importantly, all the books they have yet to discover.

And, of course, sometimes — very rarely — we do find things on the slush pile. The upcoming Comrade Jim (Fourth Estate, May 2008) was an unsolicited submission. Daniel Clay’s Broken, which HarperPress will publish in March, was discovered on the slush pile of the Curtis Brown Agency (for publishers aren’t the only fierce guardians at the gate — many agents won’t accept unsolicited submissions). In Daniel’s case, his ‘discovery’ came after almost a decade of working at a day job he loathed, writing at nights and on weekends and soldiering on through repeated rejections.

Over the next few months, Daniel will be contributing regularly to Fifth Estate, with articles on every aspect of the publishing process — from what it takes to keep writing when no-one it seems willing to represent you, let alone publish you, to signing with an agent, agreeing a publishing deal, surviving the editorial process and finally being published at home and abroad (Broken has also been signed by publishing houses in the US, Canada, Italy and Holland).

The aim of these articles is to inform and encourage, but also to introduce a writer from whom we expect great things. I hope you enjoy them.