Let me introduce: Authonomy!

In case you wondered why you don't see me "online" anymore it's because

I'm writing constantly and make wonderful progress!

 OK,OK!!!

I am over at that place I joined beginning of the year called

Authonomy

It's a wonderful site for writers and readers, created by editors from 

Harper Collins 

to help unpublished writers get spotted.

So if you have one of those dusty or shiny new manuscripts in your drawer you should head over
and join us there! You can find dozens of like-minded people to read it and offer feedback, rate it, champion it, and if you're lucky it might even fall into the hands of an editor at Harper Collins.

How?

Chose an avatar and a name (you might want to chose something anonymous unless you have that perfect thing in your drawer and you're absolutely sure, nobody will come to harm while reading it!)

Next create a cover for your book - you even find helpful artists there to draw one up for you.
I loved doing it myself ;)

Now comes the most challenging part (I think): 

Come up with a pitch -
a short one  (150 words - you can do it - you've been training on twitter and that's less than 150 characters!!) and a longer one giving the essence of what your story is about and what is at stake.

Those pitches are REALLY  important!

You want to draw someone coming across your book in immediately - 

they have to be so intrigued they want to start on it right away.

Or at least, if they don't download before they leave, mark it to read later.

 With hundreds of books up on the site, readers can't read everything, so they're selective!

So in a way these pitches are more important than your book itself. 

Visitors read them and decide whether your book is worth checking out. 

The pitch sells or it doesn't, just like a query letter would once you're hunting for an agent.

And who are these readers? Everybody!

As a writer, you can post your entire manuscript for everyone to read and comment on 

and you go about and read and comment on other books in turn. 

 Each reader gets to have 5 favorites on their bookshelf out of all the books up on the Authonomy site. A book's ranking is based on how many readers have selected it as one of their top five.

At the end of  each month, the top five out of all the top fives,
are passed on to Harper Collins Editors Desk.
So if everyone loves your work and recommends it enough,
it'll land on a real living breathing editor's desk of the site to be - TATA! - read!  

No guarantee of getting published of course, but your MS gets attention from a top publisher editor, and they'll give feedback even if they don't decide to publish you.

Which is - if you like what they say or not in the end - beyond valuable for polishing your baby!

It won't fall in your lap though.

So be prepared to spend time in the Authonomy forums, socialize and actively help others.

 You will get a lot out of that as well, as chances to really make it to the editor's desk are slim.
Unless you're shamelessly plugging your book and schmoozing with the readers. It's said the desk - sometimes - reflects that. But who cares. They aren't exactly liked by others (they also troll around spreading one stars trying to bring other books down).

But let's face it - it's a micro-cosmos reflecting society, right?

But chances are there.

And: as I said in the beginning - there are tons of other writers and readers - willing to give feedback in exchange and you can even pick specific groups depending on which part of your manuscript you want to tackle, the beginning, first chapters, specific genres...

As with all critiques - take them with a grain of sugar - it's still your story,

but if a many people comment on the same thing it might be worth looking at it.

But the more you support, the more help you get from others!

And then you have tons of different opinions - instead of just one from the desk - 

to got back and edit, edit, edit...

So, don't wait, go discover! 

Free books to read ;)

  http://www.authonomy.com

and if you want to visit me:

lilmerlin welcomes you!