It’s been a surreal few days for me. Not only do I hope to share some good news with you very soon (squee!), but there are a couple weird developments in the publishing industry that Therese pointed out to me.

Such as this one: HarperCollins is outsourcing its slush pile to . . . other aspiring writers. Their social network site Authonomy, is billed as a place for writers to upload 10,000 words of their manuscript. Then other members will read it, offer critique, and vote on the favorites. HarperCollins will consider the most popular submissions for publication.

Via Jean Hannah Edelstein at UK Guardian:

“Officially, Authonomy is a “social network for writers and book-lovers alike”. Just as MySpace allowed bands to succeed without the prior approval and investment of record companies, so Authonomy will theoretically help separate the unpublished wheat from the chaff. The idea is that aspirant scribes can upload up to 10,000 words to the site and then have their masterworks judged by what HarperCollins refers to as “keen, talent-spotting readers” – other people, that is, who have registered on the network.

[B]ut it’s hard to ignore the suspicion that what they are really doing is outsourcing the unlovely task of sluicing through the slush pile.”

I dunno, aren’t social networks sorta 2005? At least at Gather.com, the winner gets a contract with Simon and Schuster.

HC is looking for beta members to test the website and vet the idea before they launch it. If anyone decides to do this, please drop us a line at writerunboxed at writerunboxed dot com and give us the inside scoop.

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Via GalleyCat, writers are paying people to give them favorable reviews on Amazon. Who among us hasn’t read a gushing Amazon review that totally had to have been written by a friend and or relative of the author?

Question: does anyone take Amazon reviews seriously? Am I the only one who doesn’t?

It’s a sad day when even reviews have been outsourced. Next we’ll find out that Amazon wants to get in on the action and has launched a review boiler room in India.

Write on, peeps.

Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She has written two novels under the pseudonym Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter--both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President's teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins.
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