From the Slush Pile to Publication. Do purple ravens exist?

Randomness can be defined as events that happen outside predictability, prior knowledge and beliefs. I’ll start with an example. What has Paris Hilton done for the fine arts? The answer: NOTHING. And yet, she became the next big thing.

Now let’s take this concept to the world of publishing with the idea that a writer’s manuscript, deep within the bowels of the slush pile, is discovered at random – regardless of whether you are Hemingway resurrected or just another want-to-be writer with bad grammar. I read somewhere that being published is as common as securing a walk-on-role in a Harry Potter movie. Being “discovered” is left to randomness – which can further be defined as a Black Swan Event.

You may be familiar with the Black Swan Theory. We all know about the existence of white feathered swans. Hundreds of years ago, if someone asked, “Have you ever seen a black swan?” The common answer would have been, “Nope, can’t say that I have.” This was before black swans were discovered in Australia in 1697. And suddenly, with this mangy unearthing, man was awakened to a new species.

In hindsight, we think, “Well, of course they exist – why would we assume any differently?” And yet, we do assume, and are doomed to our repetitive thinking.

Do purple ravens exist? Pssstt, be careful how you answer for one never truly knows.

As I wrote In Wake of a Following, I was plagued by the question: “Did the apparitions of the Virgin Mary really happen?” I must be careful with my answer.

In 1950, Mary Ann Van Hoof came forward claiming messages from the Virgin Mary. She approached her Catholic priest who, with the help of my grandfather, readied the town for a mass pilgrimage. This is a well-documented fact.

Again, I ask – did the apparitions of the Virgin Mary really happen? The truth behind the apparitions is a matter of the beholder – one witness might call the event a pile of rubbish and the next witness will declare the apparitions as the second coming of Jesus. It comes down to a matter of opinion. In my grandfather’s opinion – yes, the Virgin Mary appeared. In my grandmother’s view, the church declared the visions false and therefore, the Van Hoof affair was a hoax.

As a fledgling young writer, I was recently coached by an editor and book marketer. She recommended that I get my query into as many slush piles as possible – explaining that publishing is about numbers. If you query hundreds of agents, eventually someone will agree to sell your work.

Hmmm, as I read about the Black Swan Theory and listened to my coach’s advice, I found another parody to my book. Were the 1950 visions just a numbers game? It really didn’t matter what each individual witness believed, it was the idea that 100,000 people came to the vision site hoping for a miracle.

And like the 100,000 people in Wisconsin, we writers and agents also consider the probability of a miracle. We assume that within a slush pile there lays waiting to be discovered the next Hans Christian Andersen, Stephen King, Agatha Christie or William Faulkner.

Resources for this blog post:

•On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile by Michael Allen
•Fooled by Randomness by Dr. Nassim Nicholas Taleb