I joined this promising site at the beginning of the month as it appeared to offer a wealth of support and promise to the unpublished author. Grabbing an almost-complete manuscript (which I had christened and buried in my hard drive long ago) I set about creating an account there.
For those who haven’t heard of the website, it is a spin off site created by Harper Collins that allows unpublished authors to display their books for commenting/review by other member authors. It also features a ranking system, whereby every member is given a virtual bookshelf. If another author places your book on their own bookshelf your rank level increases. Also if you place books that look like they may do well on your own shelf you increase your own TSR or Talent Spotter Ranking.
The ultimate objective for most, however, is reaching the Ed’s Desk; where he will take a look at the top 5 ranked books per month and review them. Yes it all sounds fantastic doesn’t it, but as with everything the nitty gritties usually lie dormant at first, until you begin to unpeel the sordid truths.
Here are some brief points on what I have learned and where it’s going right and wrong in my opinion, and possibly of some others there…
1. Hit the Authonomy Forums and you will find some very disgruntled authors complaining that they are being beseiged with ‘swap read’ requests and general site spammers. Yes quite bluntly you will be messaged many times a day asking for ‘swap reads’ or reciprocal ’comments/backings’ (by adding their books to your virtual shelf and vice versa). Its cool to begin with, but it’ll wear you down and make you feel extremely pressurised.
2. Don’t expect all the comments on your book to be genuine. The majority of the time you will realise they are thrown into your page in order for you to reciprocate quickly. Having said that, some of the authors do genuinely take the time to read through more than two sentences and offer a more constructive critique. Many of the comments may possibly stroke your ego too much, until you begin to feel that much of it is just for reciprocal support, as once the deal is done you’ll hardly hear from that author again. Some authors are genuinely critical and harsh and may lambast your book if they think it’s terrible, or tap you into improving it with gentle criticisms – these I believer are probably the most geniune members of all.
3. Even if you want to be more constructive in your commenting of other author’s books, you will soon find that you run out of steam, and/or time and patience as the list of ‘return reads’ builds up like a steam engine heading straight for your brain. One morning I awoke to find 10 new comments on my book. GREAT I thought to myself, until I realised they all pretty much expected me to read and comment on theirs too! Fair enough you say, but unless you travel at the speed of light you’ll end up like this : merely scanning the author’s book, commenting briefly, and getting on to the next book as quickly as you can. All joy removed for you the speed martian, and for the poor author expecting his baby to affect you deeply enough to offer some really constructive feedback.
4. If you are interested in playing this game (as opposed to actually concentrating on your writing) then you may well at some point hit the top 5. Though there are complaints of the top 5 rank being hit with some terrible books. This is because the author has made a point of begging for reads, and backing other authors books ruthlessly in order to get there - regardless of the quality of his/her work he is catapulted to the top. Sadly it appears that this might be leaving the more promising and ’non-gaming’ authors bobbing about in the top 100 like lost buoys at sea.
5. I haven’t yet hit the Top 5, and I presume I probably never will, as I do not have the bluntness of character to beg people to read my book, and the best I can do is occasionally read and comment on others in hope of support. So possibly bang goes my Authonomy dream! But many can and WILL play the game - and if their book is fantastic enough, well HC might take notice of it. For most its a pipe dream. Forgive me, I know little of the statistics of how many writers actually end up with a publishing deal there, but the impression offered is that it is quite slim.
So that is how I have come to understand Authonomy, love it or hate. For the time being I’ll stick with it, I mean after all it can’t be worse than having your MS cryogenically pressed into a world of darkness, where there is zero hope for it anyway!
http://www.authonomy.com/ and my novel on Authonomy http://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=15246
I believe there have been 5 books published through Authonomy. Two by Harper Collins.
None of them were on the ED – though there were two that had excellent reviews and looked like they would be picked up after revisions.
It’s true that HC-UK is not going to sweep down and make all your dreams come true, but many have gotten help from their peers with editing, learning about self publishing options including ebooks and more. People who met on authonomy have networked into groups like Year0 which has had numerous events and a great website to promote their books. I’ve bought 5 books (PODs) that I found through the site and have read a few more electronically.
Authonomy? Been there, done that…
http://playpitspark.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/stephen-king-is-right/
What else is a writer supposed to do? I sent off tons of queries in August 2009 and still receive rejection letters almost a year later. Most publishers and editors don’t even take the time to read the manuscript and only focus on the extent of the appeal in the query or pitch. If you have better ideas for publishing, please let us know.
Thanks for your comment CG.
My post is merely to highlight my personal experience at Authonomy. It’s a popular website and no doubt many stick around for months or years and find it very useful indeed. It was definitely an enlightening experience, I’m just not into author vs author gaming. (You scratch my back – I’ll scratch yours!) I reserve my right to my own opinion there.
Sadly, yes the publishing industry is a difficult one to crack, I can’t say that Authonomy is any less ‘difficult’ given the percentage of books HC actually acquire there. On the bright side, at least the author gets feedback and an opportunity to have their work reviewed.
Carla – thanks for this very helpful post, as I have been thinking about giving authonomy a go (along with half the rest of the world’s unpublished English language writers, it seems). Forewarned is forearmed….
I have been using another peer review site youwriteon.com, which seems to me to avoid some of the problems you highlight with authonomy – for example, it randomly assigns you material to review, which avoids the “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” problem (you can decline to review material if it sounds awful – although I think there may be a limit on how often you can do this). Once you’ve been assigned material to read, you also can’t see what other people have said about it, so you’re effectively forced to give your own view.
It is not without problems of its own. For example, not all reviewers will do as the site urges and put their prejudices/tastes aside when they review your work – see http://paulsamael.com/blog/my-secret-life-as-an-undercover-agent Another problem is the 7000 word limit – it’s a good thing in terms of preventing you having to read novel length pieces in your reviews, but it means that the site is full of beginnings of novels (so authonomy looks to be a better bet if you want some feedback on the whole thing).
But I think it is worth looking at as a possible alternative source of feedback – and they run their own equivalent of the Ed’s Desk (although like you, I am not pinning my hopes on getting there – it would require some very assiduous reviewing on my part to amass enough points….). Anyway, good luck with your efforts to get your novel to see the light of day !
Thank you. This is really useful for helping me decide about authonomy. Are there any other sites you would recommend for budding authors looking for useful feedback?
Paul, thank you for your comment and sorry for my late reply. I have thought about youwriteon.com and have added it to my list of sites to check out. I do however have to say that Authonomy has positively changed very recently. It seems that Harper Collins have altered the ranking/commenting system to encourage fairer play. Mainly, a book must stay on a person’s virtual bookshelf for at least 48 hours before it benefits from the ranking system. Even though some might find this irritating, it does prevent the players from messing about quite as much. Anyway, thank you for your excellent feedback!
Carla
Hi Richard, youwriteon.com has been recommended from previous comments. Also a good source of feedback are general writers forums. I once frequently visited http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/ which is an active forum for authors and writers. They have a writing lab where you can post excerpts of your work for critique. I also found http://www.writingforums.org/ another extremely active site, which was friendly and useful for general questions too. Best of luck with your writing, let us know how you get on!
Carla
I have only been on this website for a short time and find it a bit tedious. I don’t wish to read other people’s work, maybe I sound selfish. I read books, because I choose to and I find it ever so difficult to read stuff online as it hurts your eyes after a whilte.
I have found my inbox full of spam and no real genuine people as yet, maybe I’m not giving it a chance. Of course, I probably work long hours and feel too tired to bother, but maybe I should give it another go, not sure. But this spam thing is enough to put anyone off, why is it even entertained???
Sorry, few typos: I meant “your eyes after a while”.
I joined Authonomy about three years ago. I was lured by the attractive site and the promise that perhaps my book would be seen by an editor at HC. But I learned VERY quickly that it was a pipe dream. A few opening sentences of the “chosen” books was enough to scare me away. And the deluge of requests to “read” and approve other people’s books made it evident that this is a popularity contest almost totally irrelevant to fine writing.
Just take a look at the top rated books. A paragraph is often enough to show what’s going on. I’m going to self-publish through a POD company. Meanwhile it’s nice to see an attractive layout on Authonomy and get a feeling of what my book will look like in print. That’s the single most worthwhile feature of Authonomy. And it’s a good one!