[Steven Lake]

I'd actually recommend something like a clearing house for literature. Almost like a Craig's List or a shopping mall for manuscripts. Just create some simple submission guidelines that all or most of the publishers could agree on (IE, how it should be submitted, in what format, what extra items are required, such as a synopsis, character list, author bio, etc) and then have the Author submit their manuscript to the site. It would then be sorted by genre and some other criteria. Publishers then come in, browse the manuscripts based on genre and those same criteria, and then pick out the ones they want to review.

And they could speed up their work by simply going in and looking for, oh say, descriptive title. You don't have at least that, they'll pass you over. Then they mark the books they want to review, and are given a summary page. Then it's a pass or fail grade. Those that get a pass are brought up for further review from which you could further thin the herd.

Those that don't get picked get tossed back in the pile. If you don't get picked up by a publisher within 3 months, your submission is automatically kicked out and you have to resubmit. That'll give publishers time to look through the lists (they'd have a bit of time catching up at first, but then they'd only need to browse the daily submissions after that) and pick out what they want. The author could track their manuscript submission monster.com style with a listing of how many "hits" they had, and the type of hit. IE, how many times was the summary page reviewed, and how many times was the full entry reviewed, etc.

Now if you've submitted a manuscript for example, and you get no hits, then that tells you that either your book is listed wrong (ie, wrong genre, or in a niche genre that's too full right now), or you listed it wrong and need to work better at your listing. Lots of hits on the summary page but little to no full reviews means you need to fix your summary listing, and so on down the line to the full entry. And a list entry could be something like this to start them out:

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Joe's Book of Hunting
- I tell you how to knock them down and rack them up!
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Ie, the book title, and a short, one line blurb about the book to hook their interest. The one above would likely get you no reviews of your query page. But something like this would possibly rack up a lot of hits:

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Taking Trophy White Tails
- Guide to Taking Pressured White Tails in Rural Areas
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Anywho, that's one example. I'm more or less just brain storming here and trying to relay the idea, because I think it'd be a lot more efficient system for the publishers than is currently out there or used. It would also create a central repository that would allow you to hit *all* the participating publishing houses in one swoop. Publishing houses would have the advantage of seeing entires they otherwise wouldn't get to see, and in a much simpler way of sorting and cataloging than the current system.

Also, there could be a system where, instead of first come, first serve, publishing houses that wanted to publish your book could *bid* on your book. IE, they like it, and they're willing to offer you this and this, and this much royalty and so on, and you get to look at their reputation, their offer, and anything else that's available, and choose who you want.

In short, authors would have a lot of power to market their books and ensure that the maximum number of eyes saw them, publishers would be able to eliminate their slush piles and take a job that requires hours of work down to twenty minutes tops (ie, hunting down new books), and come out with a much better selection process, and likely a much better selection of titles. In short it would be a win/win for both sides. Yeah, sure, authors would still have to sell themselves like before, but publishing houses wouldn't have to deal with all the submissions sent in by authors that were of the wrong genre, or carelessly done, etc as Neilmarr stated.

But anyways, that's my idea. Feel free to like, hate, praise, or run it through the meat grinder. ^_^ And if you like the idea enough, someone ought to actually start a service like that. Now of course, the question for someone starting it would be this: How do I make money? Simple answer. Charge the author a posting fee (you would make a ton with this fee alone, and would really make authors think twice before submitting a poorly done entry, especially if it costs them money each time they send it in and it doesn't get picked up) for each manuscript entry he posts, and every repost after that. Then charge the publishers a successful bid fee. IE, it's free to search, and free to check them out, but they only get charged if they win the bid and the author agrees to publish with them.