A message to Absolute Write - be less partisan & more objective
Everybody's looking for a shortcut. Even publishers.
- Victoria
Hi Victoria, This seems a little bit understated. Random House are the UK's largest publisher of writers like John Grisham, and we are pleased they are working with YouWriteOn.com to consider and feedback to highly rated writers.
When YouWriteOn first started, to be frank, you and a number of moderators made, and continued to make, a lot of unfounded negative speculation and what proved to be incorrect comments about the site within the space of its first months of operation, while we were establishing. Jenny Glatzer commented, "dooming the very best-rated book of the year out of thousands to a POD publication sounds like a punishment instead of an honor." Victoria commented, "Do you think that anyone will remember who those writers are, as a result of this news story, long enough to remember to buy their books when the books are actually released? ". Many of the writers referred to we share with Absolute Write. YouWriteOn book inaugural book award winners, finalists and other members in 2007 in fact went on to achieve book deals, including a six figure book deal, with leading publishers like Random House and a three book deal with
The Tenderness of Wolves publisher Quercus. Other members received development assistance from the leading agents we work with, including the Christopher Little Literary Agency. Each deserving their success, and crediting YouWriteOn's hard working editors from publishers like Orion for help in their development.The award winner we published via POD was, thanks to their excellent writing, named the number one book of the year in Maine by their leading newspaper, and, far from being punished, went on to get an agent and two book deal from a leading publisher.
My question would be to you, and your fellow moderators, it that it is good to be speculative and inquisitive about a new venture, but how would you and your site writers and community feel if a larger, far older, site had applied some of the negative speculation and tone above to Absolute Write upon your start? It is bad practice on your part.
YouWriteOn has worked hard for its achievements, and so have the talented writers who took time to participate, and the editors for agents and publishers such as Orion, Curtis Brown and Random House who got involved to provide critiques for writers.
I welcome debate, always, and contrary opinion, some of which is always valuable even if hard to hear at the time. YouWriteOn itself has considered and acted upon critical feedback, and will continue to do so. At the same time, I think to give users a fully informed opinion you need to be a little more willing to give new ventures an opportunity and have a less partisan tone to remarks. If YouWriteOn's reputation had rested on the early general moderator speculation and tone alone, then we wouldn't have thrived and been able to give the many writers we have assisted the help their excellent writing deserved, including, as mentioned, the writers who came to us from you. I have to say we are pleased that yours and Jenny's speculation was wrong, and that the site's members achieved literary agent representation and publication with leading publishers. This is down to the site writers who invest so much time in developing writing, with assistance from the site's literary professionals.
Do we feel inclined to temper our comments on Absolute Write's treatment of a fledging site? No. Do we doubt that Absolute Write does some sterling work for writers itself, including with valuable information for writers. No again. You have to consider though, to fully inform users, that you can't become partisan against a site. A continued supply of negative speculation developed as we first started to establish ourselves, and when the writers, and the site, do achieve considerable success you can either hear an Absolute Write moderator pin-drop, or the comment verges on the rather understated and uninspired, "Everybody's looking for a shortcut. Even publishers" when the UK's largest publisher becomes involved with the site.
Sometimes, we suggest, in order to ensure the balance you need to keep to provide good information for writers, you need to look critically at yourselves as well. That said, we wish all writers success as ever. What was at stake behind this was not the importance of YouWriteOn, but the importance of a community of budding writers just like on Absolute Write, just starting off. We would much rather be continuing to concentrate on assisting writers such writers, and that's what we'll be off to continue to do today. We hope Absolute Write will be less partisan in future, the tone in this thread has been an example that you are really not serving the writing communities interests if you continue to fail to do so in future.
Ted