There are ways to mitigate spam. Spam has been a thing since the forum and email web 1.0 days.
When I'm saying having an AI to evaluate a written work, then it would sort the spam as spam. It could probably recognize AI tropes and start to evaluate it which were human written.
Perhaps requiring a cover letter for the entry could assist the workflow. That way there is something to quickly assess if it's something you are looking for before you dive in and read 20,000 words.
Having an automated email that will respond and inform the person a timeline of when it'd be evaluated.
If the concept of spam is enough to cause a publisher to throw their hands up, there was probably something else wrong with the publisher to begin with. The bigger threat to publishers has been self-publishing these days. So if anything, the reader should be wary of self-published items and authors are going to have to put themselves out there via video and other means to have their audience know they are really real.
There are ways to mitigate spam. Spam has been a thing since the forum and email web 1.0 days.
When I'm saying having an AI to evaluate a written work, then it would sort the spam as spam. It could probably recognize AI tropes and start to evaluate it which were human written.
Perhaps requiring a cover letter for the entry could assist the workflow. That way there is something to quickly assess if it's something you are looking for before you dive in and read 20,000 words.
Having an automated email that will respond and inform the person a timeline of when it'd be evaluated.
If the concept of spam is enough to cause a publisher to throw their hands up, there was probably something else wrong with the publisher to begin with. The bigger threat to publishers has been self-publishing these days. So if anything, the reader should be wary of self-published items and authors are going to have to put themselves out there via video and other means to have their audience know they are really real.