authonomy?

Sherrie Cronin

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I recently had an online acquaintance direct me towards a writer's website called authonomy. It has some connection to Harper Collins and boasts a complex rating system for both you and your books that rises or falls on a daily basis. I was immediately hit with a couple of dozen personal message requests to read others stuff with promises that they would read mine. The place seems lively but like it requires a serious investment of time. I am trying to decide if the potential for feedback and exposure might be worth the energy and real writing time it will take. Anyone else have an opinion or personal experience there to share?
 

Sherrie Cronin

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Thanks. I read through the entire thread. Posts were all from 2008 - 2009 but the site seems to still be pretty much be as described. I have gotten a few nice reviews and helpful comments but neither are enough to justify the time it would take to really get noticed I think. Appreciate the link!
 

mark_laverdiere

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Thanks for the info! I think I might have read through that site sometime yesterday...complete waste of time, I guess!
 

sarahdalton

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I use Authonomy as a way to get comments and feedback, but there are people on the site who just waste their time trying to get the golden review from Haper Collins.

Even for those who get a review from HC the likelihood of HC actually publishing the book is really slim. I think it's happened maybe once, and it doesn't look like they've put much effort into the marketing.

The forum is decent for networking. I've found Beta readers and supporters. But, honestly, don't spend your life on there. It's not worth it.
 

Transatlantic

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I found the A. forum clogged with sock puppets, trolls and stupid attempts at inside "jokes" to the point of uselessness. I was actually really disappointed. This one is a million times better!
 

sarahdalton

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I found the A. forum clogged with sock puppets, trolls and stupid attempts at inside "jokes" to the point of uselessness. I was actually really disappointed. This one is a million times better!

The self publishing section is good, but I agree, there is that element to it. There's also about 50 threads on religion and endless debates on politics... I keep out of all that.

I tend to pop in and out, post a little bit, talk to the people I know and then disappear.
 

Sherrie Cronin

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Thanks all! This place here is GREAT for information (this thread being a case in point) but unless I haven't found the right corner here yet it is not set up so much for getting ones novels critiqued. Then again, the lavish praise I got almost instantly on Authomony isn't that helpful either. Neither is all the "Click like for my book and I'll like yours back" on Goodreads. Any suggestions for a site geared towards "read a few chapters of my novel and be honest and I'll read a few of yours?"
 

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Ah, I will probably be smacked, but I've played there on and off, and if you join a critique group, you can receive some good feedback. One of the best there this year, or was early on, is the Literary Crit group. There is still a bit of fluff happening with some of those members, but if you can wade through the fluffy stuff it doesn't hurt as long as you are not expecting Harper to Publish you...they have published close to nil, if not nil, of books that made it up through the ranks and a great deal of members play a publicity game of all niceness and sweetness and praise on books really not worthy. That said there are some good writers on there, and with a couple that have reached the desk, I've wondered why Harper have the site when they have been delivered the occasional really good book.
 
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sarahdalton

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Thanks all! This place here is GREAT for information (this thread being a case in point) but unless I haven't found the right corner here yet it is not set up so much for getting ones novels critiqued. Then again, the lavish praise I got almost instantly on Authomony isn't that helpful either. Neither is all the "Click like for my book and I'll like yours back" on Goodreads. Any suggestions for a site geared towards "read a few chapters of my novel and be honest and I'll read a few of yours?"

It is quite hard to find honest crits. I recently joined Wattpad and found that it's pretty much the same as Authonomy except for the masses of teenage girls writing One Direction porn. Scary.

I reckon your best bet are forums. The crit section on this site for instance. That way, there's no incentive. There aren't any editor's desks or votes or silliness like that, it's just writers connecting with each other.

I used to use a forum specifically for critiques. The rules were pretty strict. You had to critique 2 for every story you post. Unfortunately the mods were a bit overboard and I ended up leaving, but 90% of the people on there were really helpful. I've totally forgotten the name now, which isn't very helpful, sorry!
 

Sherrie Cronin

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Ah, I will probably be smacked, but I've played there on and off, and if you join a critique group, you can receive some good feedback. One of the best there this year, or was early on, is the Literary Crit group. There is still a bit of fluff happening with some of those members, but if you can wade through the fluffy stuff it doesn't hurt as long as you are not expecting Harper to Publish you...they have published close to nil, if not nil, of books that made it up through the ranks and a great deal of members play a publicity game of all niceness and sweetness and praise on books really not worthy. That said there are some good writers on there, and with a couple that have reached the desk, I've wondered why Harper have the site when they have been delivered the occasional really good book.

I certainly hope that nobody smacks you! Joining one of the critique groups is a good suggestion. I wasn't going to bother because I was getting so many comments already, but if the quality of the critique goes up then that would be good.
Yeah, I hold zero hope that Harper Collins is going to lift me up out of the slush pile in amazed admiration. :) THANKS for your helpfulness.
 

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A couple of the books published via Authonomy turned out to have been submitted to them by agents: it was coincidental that they were also on Authonomy at the time.
 

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I've just been told by our fiction publisher that we need to be scouring sites like Wattpad for self-pub phenomena to pick up. Have we just entered the Age of the YADS?
 

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Torgo, you might like to show your fiction publisher the Wattpad thread here.

Wattpad claims that the books it hosts attract many readers, often with reported reader-numbers in the millions: but it's explained in the AW BR&BC thread how a great proportion of those "readers" are actually googlebots and such, and so should not be counted as readers at all. Wattpad's actual reader numbers appear to be much, much smaller than they claim.
 

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Torgo, you might like to show your fiction publisher the Wattpad thread here.

Wattpad claims that the books it hosts attract many readers, often with reported reader-numbers in the millions: but it's explained in the AW BR&BC thread how a great proportion of those "readers" are actually googlebots and such, and so should not be counted as readers at all. Wattpad's actual reader numbers appear to be much, much smaller than they claim.

Yeah, I've explained that a few times. But the hierarchy is starting to worry that they're going to miss out on the next breakout self-pub hit, and so we have to give it a go in case we find anything good. I'm currently clicking around a bunch of these sites trying to work out what the best filter method might be.

The problem I'm having with Wattpad is exactly what we always knew about display sites - it's wall-to-wall slush, you require eyebleach and mental floss every few minutes, and who has the time?
 

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Yeah, I've explained that a few times. But the hierarchy is starting to worry that they're going to miss out on the next breakout self-pub hit, and so we have to give it a go in case we find anything good. I'm currently clicking around a bunch of these sites trying to work out what the best filter method might be.

The problem I'm having with Wattpad is exactly what we always knew about display sites - it's wall-to-wall slush, you require eyebleach and mental floss every few minutes, and who has the time?

Oh, jaysus.

Let me go see if they have an API.

It's worth noting, I think, that the breakout self-pub hits have all come from fairly sophisticated fan fiction sites—and those tend to be much much harder to game.

I can see some merit in keeping an eye on a couple of those communities, but not on Wattpad etc.
 

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Oh, jaysus.

Let me go see if they have an API.

It's worth noting, I think, that the breakout self-pub hits have all come from fairly sophisticated fan fiction sites—and those tend to be much much harder to game.

I can see some merit in keeping an eye on a couple of those communities, but not on Wattpad etc.

Wattpad, indeed, looks like a total bust, at least from a statistical point of view. I clicked all their award winners from 2011 and didn't find much that I could tolerate; it's an unsorted slush pile. But I guess
part of this is that maybe we're looking at a different product here, a different market. Maybe my judgement of what would be commercially successful given some attention is just off, because it's aimed at some new niche that's only accessible via this kind of social media. I'm going to be watching HC's Dinner With a Vampire very closely.

I like the fan fiction site idea, because we've certainly seen they're a useful place to learn some chops - Cassie Clare, EL James... (Please PM me if you have any suggestions for good ones to look at.)
 

Cyia

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The biggest fanfiction site out there is Fanfiction. net - but most of what's there is eye-bleed territory (they've also got Fictionpress as a "sister site" for original fiction). You can, however, find some good pieces on FFn by looking for the works with the most comments, rather than the highest rated. That's really the measure of a fanfiction piece. At one time, the average was 1 comment for every 10-15 readers, so those with high comment counts generally have the most attention directed at them.

There are so many fandom-specific sites out there, you could never dig through them all. The sad thing is, the best fiction seems to end up on those smaller sites. If the vampire fad wasn't old news, I could tell you where to find a few writers with novel-quality writing on a vampire-specific site. :(
 

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You can, however, find some good pieces on FFn by looking for the works with the most comments, rather than the highest rated. That's really the measure of a fanfiction piece. At one time, the average was 1 comment for every 10-15 readers, so those with high comment counts generally have the most attention directed at them.

This is true in general of fan fic; watch for the comment threads that are large and active. It's sometimes a sign of controversy, but often, it's a sign of engaged readers posting about good writing.

There are so many fandom-specific sites out there, you could never dig through them all. The sad thing is, the best fiction seems to end up on those smaller sites. If the vampire fad wasn't old news, I could tell you where to find a few writers with novel-quality writing on a vampire-specific site. :(

PM Torgo anyway; good writing may very well translate, and they may have something stashed that's original, too.
 

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I've been on Authonomy since 2009. At first I liked it and received good feedback then I saw the cracks. People always fought, sock puppets emerged and I no longer enjoyed it. After a year hiatus I'm back to test the waters.
 

Eltondiva

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I have been on authonomy since 2011, it's a good place to meet other like minded authors and participate in critique groups (I was in the one for horror), but I'd say that is the limit of it's benefits to an author. There are no measures that can truly gage the level of interest in a piece of work, at most you may make a few friends if the forum "debates" are avoided.
 

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I'm a recent member there, but I've yet to find much that holds me. I've toyed with the idea of posting a story, but honestly, I think a direct agent query is still the way to go. Something about posting a story onlinbe for the world to see doesn't feel write. Maybe when those established paths die out I'll consider it.
 

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I agree with medievalist. Anyone who has serious intention about getting published should try self-publishing companies; or find a literary agent, if possible. Publishers won’t be interested in something which has already been posted online.
 

Torgo

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Publishers won’t be interested in something which has already been posted online.

This isn't really the case any more, at least on my patch. children's books. It was once, but we're now seeing all kinds of stuff jumping into the mainstream from fanfic and, yes, even one or two of the display sites these days; although the display sites in question are the ones that are focused on being a writing community rather than the old 'let's revolutionise the slushpile' pipe dream.

However, I wouldn't regard sites like this as a path to publication, if that's the goal.