Like an old warhorse, I’m shocked to find I’ve now spent decades in the publishing industry that I enthusiastically joined in my early twenties. I’ve worked for smaller publishers as well as two of the ‘big five’ so have seen the acquisition process from all angles, and it doesn’t vary much.
When I began in publishing, the assistant’s role was often to sift through the ‘slush pile’ of unsolicited manuscripts that would be sent directly to the publisher. Everyone lived in the hope of finding a diamond
