Wading Into The Slush
The (very long) story of how I got the fantastic job of reading "slush" for Baen Books.
(Three explanatory notes. First, "slush" is the "technical" term for unsolicited manuscripts submitted to a magazine or publisher. It applies to short stories, novels, and everything in between. Second, Baen Books is a major publisher of science fiction and fantasy novels. Third, while most of the web site uses the editorial "we" convention, in this article we're going with the straight first person narrative.)
When I retired from the USAF and moved down here to Cary, the contract writing position I thought I had lined up fell through. I applied for jobs all over the area, and was especially keen to work in publishing, so I applied to several openings at Oxford University Press, which has a large local operation. I never got a call. In fact I got very few calls from anywhere, which was very discouraging.
In late August 2006, I picked up the phone book and looked in the Yellow Pages under "publishers," and saw a listing for Baen Books; since I'd only ever seen a New York address for them, I was surprised to see them listed as being in the local area. But I picked up the phone and introduced myself as a retired officer who would love to get into the book business. They didn't have any job openings at the time, but the office folks gave me the publisher's phone number and suggested I call her.
I spoke to her on the phone for about 5 or 10 minutes, sent my resume to her along with a list of my favorite authors, and that was that. I thought she might be at Dragon*Con last year, so I could introduce myself, but that didn't work out.
I didn't hear anything back, so I figured a job at Baen wasn't going to happen. In fact, nothing much happened for the next several months, except that fellow Literary Boot Camp alumnus Edmund Schubert invited me to read slush for Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show.
Seven months after my initial talk with the publisher, I read on the Codex writer's forum that Baen was looking to hire an Editorial Assistant. I sent a brief e-mail to the point of contact in the ad, expressed my interest in the position and attached my new resume--featuring my IGMS slush reading--and they called the next day and asked if I could come to an interview the following week.
I drove up to the Baen office on a Thursday evening, not entirely sure what to expect but thrilled down to my bones for the chance. And almost the first thing the publisher said to me was, "I'm not going to hire you for the Editorial Assistant position."
As she explained her rationale, which I won't go into, I wondered why I was even there. Sure, it was cool to be in the office of a big-time SF&F publisher, but did I have to drive an hour to be told I had no chance at the job?
Then she said, "We're thinking of hiring an editor, and I'd like to consider you for the job," and I thought I would fall out of my chair.
I caught my breath over the next few minutes, as she took me back downstairs and started handing me books--nine in total--that she wanted me to read to get a feel for what Baen publishes. When we went back upstairs, she pushed a huge stack of paper toward me: two manuscripts that I was to read, write evaluation reports on (i.e., what was good or bad about the book, whether I'd recommend it, what needed fixing), and line edit. She was especially interested to see my "blue pencil" work.
I drove home feeling dazed and overwhelmed.
Over the next two weeks I worked on the manuscripts; both were already in the Baen production pipeline. The first was a good story with what I thought were a couple of major but fixable flaws, and the second was just out-and-out a fantastic book. I wrote up my reports and e-mailed them to the publisher, then delivered the MSS back to the office in early April 2007.
I waited. I swapped a couple of e-mails with the publisher in which she said they still had to go over my comments, and that they were considering a couple of other people in addition to me. I told myself that, even if it didn't work out, at least I got to read a couple of Baen books before the general public did.
But in late April I got a phone message that she wanted to talk to me about being Baen's "slushmaster." When I called, she offered me the chance to handle all of Baen's paper slush on a part-time basis, with the official title of "Contributing Editor."
Yes, yes, yes, I'd be happy to do that and when do I start?
The first Monday in May, I drove back up to the office and we talked about procedures and expectations. They gave me the choice of being anonymous, but I said I didn't need special protection or treatment and they should handle this the way they normally would. So they sent a release to Locus, which noted in the June issue that I was hired by Baen as a "freelance consulting editor."
I came home from that meeting with four boxes of manuscripts (they're still being collected at the New York address and then sent down south), and immediately sent out my own "release" of sorts to all my writing friends. And now anyone who reads this will know the whole sordid story.
I still find this both exciting and hard to believe. My thanks, again, to Ed Schubert and Scott Card for trusting me with IGMS slush to begin with--I think that had a lot to do with my picking up this assignment.