Yeah, that waitlist is gnarly -- 800+ publications, and I don't go in order of application, I go by topics that we need more representation of, story quality, range of writers in the pub, etc. Rest assured you're still on the waitlist -- each month I recruit folks directly from the list. My hope is to open the floodgates by the end of this year!

And just to address your concern about the ethics of the nominator you spoke to: part of this beta program is assuming that everyone involved (writers & nominators) will be self-serving and exploring ways to profit. Part of what I watch is the different methods that people explore, in the interest of building better checks & balances into the system to compensate for the ways folks try to exploit it.

In my experience, nominators who are too self serving tend to hit walls with writers who don't like what they're doing. Situations like you describe end up being a short-sighted strategy that hurt the nominator's reputation in the long run -- because the good writers lose interest in working with them and their publications. It's pretty interesting to watch it play out, and is part of why this beta is so long. It takes time to learn.