I gather that when a piece is submitted to an agent or publisher, if it gets past the first hurdle it might get sent to some trusted readers for their comments before the agent or publisher decides to go any further. Or a reader might be given the slush pile to filter for the agent or publisher.

Does anyone know who these readers are? Are they other employees of the firm or friends and family or work experience students (like Jodi in the personalised rejections thread if I've translated 'intern' into British correctly) or freelance specialists?

Just wondering about how the mysterious business of publishing works...
K

Thanks Tommi (and thanks for the review you did for me if you didn't see my post elsewhere).

I just wondered how typical that process Jodi's doing is - ie decisions that are critical to authors are taken by people who aren't 'professionals' in the sense of not having the experience that an agent or an editor might.

Some are good, but - dare I say it - I'm afraid a lot of readers are pretty bad. They're often people who have had things published in a small way, and want to make a bit of extra cash doing something connected with writing. Frequently they have absolutely no experience of publishing - they may have just written things. Others have had junior editorial jobs and "sort of" know what's expected. I think they're rather pernicious but I don't know what the alternative is. You can't expect hard working busy editors to critique everything.

I had a friend who did a couple of weeks of work experience at a publisher and he was the one reading submissions from the slush pile. He had no experience of anything, just an English literature degree.