I don't know if it's the norm. I think it's just another way to milk money from those readers who want to be writers (and who someone they trust to critique for free).
Regarding the PiTA factor for the publisher.... Note that they also don't say who they define as a "romance writing expert". Perhaps they have a ton of stuff coming in and have interns trained. They could even use this as the training ground for reading slush. Or the stuff coming in is generally from people who can't find critique partners, and can usually be skimmed quickly to find 2 pages worth of critique comments.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2006-10-24 11:29 am (UTC)Regarding the PiTA factor for the publisher.... Note that they also don't say who they define as a "romance writing expert". Perhaps they have a ton of stuff coming in and have interns trained. They could even use this as the training ground for reading slush. Or the stuff coming in is generally from people who can't find critique partners, and can usually be skimmed quickly to find 2 pages worth of critique comments.