Well, 'tis done.
I was asked to read the submissions for Angry Robot Books Open Door Month in March.
944 came in and I read maybe half of these partial submissions (maybe a little less than half).
I called forward 60 full manuscripts.
Out of those I have put forward 9 manuscripts and I dearly hope that they ALL get picked up - all these authors should be exceptionally proud of what they've achieved. The manuscript titles of those novels I adored are:
1) Channel Zilch
2) The Lives of Tao
3) The Mad Scientist's Daughter
4) Grayspace
5) The Further Adventures of Cyrano de Bergerac
6) The Dead of Winter
7) Pantomime
8) Brew
9) The Corpse-Rat King
Intriguing titles, non? Based simply on the titles, are there any that you would pick up to glance at the blurb?
Amazingly, I asked for three full manuscripts that were never sent through to me. I asked for them more than once to ensure that my email hadn't been lost, but, at this point, I have to say that they now count as rejected, otherwise they would have had many more months than everyone else who submitted, which is not at all fair.
Irritatingly, five of the manuscripts I asked to see have been picked up by various agents and publishers (one of which is the newly created Jo Fletcher Books imprint - congratulations Alison Littlewood!) That's the way the cookie crumbles, I guess, but I regret not being faster *grins*
Anyway, that's my job all done! If any of you have questions about the process and how it went for me, then drop them in the comments and I'll try and respond.
I would glance at the blurbs of: Channel Zilch, Lives of Tao, The Mad Scientist's Daughter, and Pantomime. The rest might have to depend on their covers.
ReplyDeleteThe Mad Scientist's Daughter does sound quite fascinating. I'd also want to check out the blurbs of Channel Zilch, The Lives of Tao, The Dead of Winter and Brew.
ReplyDelete"The Corpse-Rat King" caught my eye, the others not so much - but then the title I submitted to AR is not the title my book is being published under. Those boys know their marketing!
ReplyDeleteThe Mad Scientist's Daughter, Grayspace, The Dead of Winter, Brew, and The Corpse-Rat King all sound like interesting titles. For the others it would depend on what the cover looks like for me. But there's no title that I instantly feel would negate checking out the book.
ReplyDeletei think the Cyrano de Bergerac one sounds the BEST
ReplyDeletethen Brew and Corpse-Rat King
It was a fun trip. You did get my full but I didn't quite make the cut. I hope this gets done again. I look forward to seeing, hopefully, all these on the shelves soon at my bookstore.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all of your hard work, Amanda. I salute you and Donna for taking so much responsibility on this task.
ReplyDelete'The Mad Scientist's Daughter' and 'The Corpse-Rat King', for me. But after that it would very much depend on the blurb - I get easily put off by crap or so-so blurbs.
ReplyDeleteKudos to the writers that came up with those titles - I have an awful time coming up with titles for my stuff, mainly because I completely and utterly suck at it.
p.s. brilliant job on reading nearly 500 manuscripts in such a short time and not gouging your own eyes out.
Thanks for the comments, folks. Now you're making me think I need to change the name of Lives of Tao. =(
ReplyDeleteThanks Amanda for all your hard work!
The Mad Scientist's Daughter - definitely.
ReplyDeleteThe Dead of Winter - maybe.
Thanks for the insane amount of work you put into the Open Door Submission Month experiment, Amanda.
ReplyDeleteI'm stoked to see BREW on the list and happy that some would-be readers like the title.
Other titles that stand out to me: The Corpse-Rat King, Channel Zilch, The Mad Scientist's Daughter, and The Further Adventures of Cyrano de Bergerac.