Archive - February 22, 2010

Last month (1/30/2010) there was a great article in The Wall Street Journal  entitled, “The Death of the Slush Pile” by Kathrine Rosman. It told of the depressing straits in publishing, how an unknown–unless extremely lucky–can’t  find a publishers. No publishing house is reading unsolicited manuscripts. Most film producers won’t read anything that comes from a new writers, unless they have an agent. Why? Well, film and television executives are afraid of being sued for plagiarism. There is the 1990 case where Art Buchwald sued Paramount, alleging that the studio took his idea and turned it into the movie, “Coming to America.” Also publishers and movie executives say they can’t avoid to hire young college graduates to read through the mail. And since 9/11 and the aftermath, remember the anthrax scares? Well, everyone is afraid to open the mail. It doesn’t get any easier (getting published) at place where unsolicited work is read. The . . .