You would like to think that as soon as you are done with your proposal and send it off to an agent that he or she is sitting there by the inbox ready to read it as soon as it comes in. If only. Before email became the submission method, agents and acquisitions editors threw unsolicited proposals into a stack in the corner of the office called the slush pile. Then, once a month or so, they brewed a pot of coffee and in a few hours went through hundreds of proposals and manuscripts. Although the slush pile moved to the email inbox, the response is the same: Usually, every manuscript gets rejected. But sometimes a proposal jumps out and grabs the agent’s or editor’s interest and goes on to get published. 

So, how can that lucky proposal be for your book? Well, luck has nothing to do with it. There is a way to get out of the slush pile, and our guest today will tell us how.

Her first novel, A Vow to Cherish (Affiliate Link), went from slush pile, to book, to major motion picture. Twenty-six years and more than forty books later, she’s still creating stories that touch hearts and lives.  

Deborah Raney, welcome to the Christian Publishing Show!

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