After my original post I ducked back into the submission pile to help out on the remaining SF. So my final tally is 480 partial submissions. As far as I can tell I requested about 55 full mss. I say about, because I lost a few along the way to agents. One withdrew the ms completely and the others becomes directly represented to Angry Robot Books. That means the editors read the MS rather than the reader.
So far I’ve finished reading 23 full ms, so I have a bit to go before this task is complete. I like reading full mss so it is not too onerous. The time factor is the hard part with things like university starting, the day job and a science fiction convention to get started. Canberra won the right to hold the Australian National Science Fiction Convention in 2013. While the real hard work is a way off yet, there are things like venue, budget, website, guests, membership rate setting etc to deal with. As I am co-chair with Nicole Murphy we need to get stuff done too.
So the blog post is in progress and I hope to get it up by tomorrow. I was away for work on the weekend in outback South Australia so couldn’t work on it.
I’m keeping up with your insight on how a reader evaluates submissions. Even though I don’t think I’ll have anything for Angry Robots (it’s not a publisher I’m familiar with), I’m thinking your experience will be similar to other readers at other houses. Thanks!
Hi Madison
Thank you for your comment.
I think you are right, there are some general observations that apply. The next post on common issues will also highlight some areas as well.
Thank you for all this information from the other side of the slush pile! All I can say is I hope you enjoy mine when you come to read it…