Authonomy - Harper Collins

[ctg]

I was listening BBC 4 this other day, and went to this place that Harper Collins has set up to get through the slush pile. Now I have watched them for couple of days but I would like to hear you opinions on is it a good place to post your material as and when you're getting serious on publishing.

authonomy is a website owned and operated by HarperCollins,[1] designed with a commercial aim in mind: to unearth new talent. authonomy solicits submissions from unpublished and self published authors to, in their words, "[..] post their manuscripts for visitors to read online. Authors create their own personal page on the site to host their project - and must make at least 10,000 words available for the public to read." The site went live in September 2009 after a beta launch in October 2007 and currently has over 24,000 registered members.[2] [3]


While a number of published writers have emerged from their work having been marketed on the site, there is suspicion both within and outside the community that the agenda for HarperCollins in establishing authonomy is actually to service Print on Demand. Conversely, it could be argued that many think that the future of publishing lies exactly in this area.[4]


Titles which have emerged from authonomy include Miranda Dickinson's Fairytale in New York, which reached number 9 in the Sunday Times bestseller lists, Steve Dunne's The Reaper and Never Say Die, co-authored by Melanie Davis and Lynne Barrett-Lee. A number of agents and publishers have been circling authonomy and HarperCollins claim that 20 more books have been picked up by other publishers and agents.[2][5] On the other hand, another title that appeared on the site (David Kessler's Mercy) did not progress through the site's reader ratings but was subsequently picked up by the Avon division of HarperCollins UK after it was sent to them by an agent with no connection to authonomy.[6]


Critics of authonomy have labelled it as a “do-it-yourself slush pile” and argue that the recommendation mechanisms for a book making it to the top of this pile for editorial appraisal are problematic.[7]


The site does represent a significant break with the way in which manuscripts are traditionally sourced by publishers.

authonomy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Arthur_Connelly]

I can't speak from experience, never having used the site, but I like the concept. You can spend a long, long time waiting to find someone who'll take more from you than simply a query letter. And sometimes, you can fall prey to a slush pile reader who's having a bad day and might not give your manuscript the time it needs. You might even run into someone who isn't impressed by the first three pages and just tosses it in the trash.

The site seems like a way to get your work out there. And since other publishers watch it, you could even see it as a way to do multiple submissions in a less underhanded way. With that said, there's no guarantee that anything will come out of submitting, but who knows. Someone might be impressed by your style, if not the work itself. All in all, it seems like a good thing to me. Don't know if I'll give it a try or not when the time comes, but it's nice to know that it's around.

EDIT: After going here, I'm reconsidering things. While the concept is still sound, it seems like you could just ingratiate others and in turn inflate your position on the site. If that's the case, then you won't get any better as a writer if all you ever get are a bunch of people giving you nice responses, rather than constructive (soul-crushing) ones. I'd hate to end up blacklisted for being honest.



http://maryww.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/authonomy-one-writers-experience/

 

[Mouse]

I was on there, briefly. It's more of a... "you back my book and I'll back yours" sort of thing. So really, it doesn't matter how good you are. You have to spend a hell of a lot of time on the site, promising people you'll do this, that and the other, just so they'll 'shelf' your book and possibly back it. I didn't have nearly enough time to spend there, so it didn't work for me. However, if you have a lot of time, I guess it could work. I did get quite a few comments on my book. (All good comments, actually!)

 

[chopper]

its all about networking, not about writing and talent. there was one case last year where a chap got everybody he knew from an MMORPG to come onto the site and back his book - unfairly, many people were squealing - into that month's top 5. if you can invest the time and energy into it, it might be worth doing, but if you do have that kind of time, why not use it to write?

 

[The Bloated One]

Totally agree with Mouse and Chopper.

If you are willing to be underhand, spend hours on the Internet, get people to back you and don't bother to back in return (why waste time that you can devote to yourself) you will go up the rankings. I was on there for a while, got quite a way on but was fed up with the platitudes and back slapping. Lots of people using Authonomy feel sick about what goes on, sadly they don't see an alternative.

I had my first three chapters slam dunked by an experienced writer of SFF recently. Through the carnage he gave me direction and encouragement. I learnt a lot more than wasting time on Autonomy would give me. Now I know what mountain to climb and how to do it. Imagine if I had thrown everything at Authonomy, got to the desk and then been slam dunked?

It may seem retrograde to many on Authonomy, but if you write SFF, Chron really is the best place to hone your skills. Here, you get honest comment and debate. It works. And, when I get published, I will have a page thanking Chron and Chron members, not because I have to, but because I want to.


TBO

 

[Toby Frost]

Good point. Clearly there comes a point with many writers where showing stories to friends and family isn't enough, and tougher critique is required. At this point you need to be careful not to end up in a situation where writers mutually congratulate one another, as this just leads to stagnation. I was lucky enough to join a writing group that doesn't do this. I can't comment on authonomy, but Chrons does involve proper comments, some of them more raw than others!

 

[mygoditsraining]

I agree with the above points. I did actually try it out last year, and found a few things out immediately:

1) It's a massive hit counter/networking exercise. People will message you constantly wanting you to "swap" reads with them, which is a euphemism for "say something vaguely nice about my writing and stick me on your bookshelf and I'll do the same for you".

While I tried to be nice to people that got in touch with me, I couldn't help but be honest with my feedback - and I got a few terse (and some report-worthy) responses from people who weren't used to or ready for a bit of criticism, even when it was tempered with praise. As a general rule of thumb, I would only bring up as many critical points as I could supportive points - the kindness of strangers and all that - but even then I still managed to flick a few crazy switches.

2) Harper Collins don't actually take the premise seriously enough for it to be worth anyone's time. They review a select few from the top of the popularity pile every month, which exarcerbates point 1) to the level that, if you're new to the site and forum, regulars will tell you straight up that there's a queue for the HC reader's desk. They've published three (maybe four?) authors "from" authonomy - one of whom was a guy who had been selling his thriller via self-publishing for long enough to convince them it was a viable prospect, another through their "true life stories" imprint - in two or three years of operation, so the chances of being a) seen and b) published is about as slim as via the normal routes; even less considering how much time you'd have to put in with the regulars to get to the top of the pile.

3) I don't know if this is still true, but the big corporate sell on Authonomy was their self-publishing partner. Every page on your profile had a link to the site, with encouraging blurb about how you could start selling your book today and cut out all that troublesome publishing business malarkey. This alone was enough to make me cancel my account a week after creating it.

As an addendum, it wasn't all bad. There were some really nice people on there who would give you an honest accounting of what they actually thought, were outstandingly polite and careful to disassociate themselves from the pack of rabid read-swappers...which in hindsight might have been some clever reverse psychology because I tended to make time for those people over anyone else.

Also I had a very amusing email from a scarily enthusiastic woman in the US who demanded I send her the rest of my novel because she needed to know what happened next. It was a bit weird and stalker-y but still, it's nice to know someone enjoyed it, right?

OOH I almost forgot. Final point. If you do sign up, be prepared to plough through the slushpile. I don't want to come across as overly mean, so let's just put it this way - there's a lot of unpolished writing out there.

 

[Ursa major]

OOH I almost forgot. Final point. If you do sign up, be prepared to plough through the slushpile. I don't want to come across as overly mean, so let's just put it this way - there's a lot of unpolished writing out there.

Setting aside the time-eating aspect of this (something that we at the Chrons know nothing about, obviously ), it might, if done in the correct spirit**, offer some of us encouragement. (Or realise how much work we still need to do to rise above it.)



** - That is, not go there merely to poke fun, or (more importantly) not to get complacent.

 

[mygoditsraining]

(Or realise how much work we still need to do to rise above it.)

A good point, too! I actually did this recently after noting with dismay how many times in a short story the characters a) nodded or b) smiled. I went back to my own draft of something and did a search for instances of a) or b) occurring and realised I'd been doing the same thing - whenever I wasn't sure about the dialogue, I was adding lots of extra (and very generic) description that seemed innocuous enough in little chunks but across the whole document was...depressing.

 

[Ursa major]

*smiles*

Well my characters do this a lot as well o), in spite of everything. (They must be true optimists.)

 

[thatollie]

I know one of the author who's had success at Authonomy, and I can honestly say that she deserves it. But I did notice a "You back me, I back you" theme in several messages.

If I didn't know how talented she was, that would put me off buying her book.