Pitching to the World

authonomy's private beta has now been running a month, and we've been belting in upgrades as we go. One of our very first additions has been to add RSS feeds – allowing users versed in the dark arts of syndication to be updated instantly on the latest comments, and most importantly the latest pitches from submitting authors. It’s a small change visually, but a big change for the site as a whole – because already it offers a tantalising glimpse of a far better way to handle the book-world’s fabled ‘slush-pile’.



First of all, here’s the science bit. RSS, which stands for “Really Simple Syndication” is a very basic piece of technology that lets even staunch technophobes suck articles from one site and put them somewhere else – perhaps where they can be more conveniently read. A very popular use of this is for regular web users to pull together onto one web page (known as an ‘RSS reader’) the latest articles from all their favourite sites - allowing them to keep a quick eye on everything that’s going on by visiting only one location. Click here for an example of an RSS reader in action.

In addition to this, RSS feeds are also used to add interesting content to existing websites. For example, if you run a book blog you can now add to it a list of the latest headlines from The Bookseller or the Guardian with just a few clicks of the mouse. Increasingly, companies are placing RSS feeds from relevant sites on their intranets, ensuring all their employees are up to date with the latest news from their industry – indeed, if you’re using the latest version of Windows you can now drop feeds straight onto your desktop.

How does it help the book trade? The advantages of RSS are the ability to publish content far and wide (in the process, reaching people who would never come to your site of their own accord) and also to allow web users to easily identify the most interesting information from the mass of content produced daily on the web. Which are also two reasons why the feeds system perfectly suits the stack of unsolicited manuscripts known all too often as ‘the slush pile’.

authonomy’s new feeds allow hungry editors and agents to add a rolling feed of the latest submissions to their desktop, home page, intranet or indeed anywhere else that proves convenient – gaining instant access to book pitches from around the world, and ‘one-click’ access straight into the text of whatever catches their eye. By removing the mail bag, the self addressed envelope, the reply card, authonomy can offer editors more proposals, from more sources, than ever before – and in a convenient, inobtrusive, digital form that doesn’t cost time, or effort, or money to process.

Suddenly feeds can make the search for unsolicited talent much more attractive; and much less wasteful. Indeed, if the present unsolicited system sees manuscripts land on the wrong desks – even sent to houses who don’t publish in matching areas – feeds can allow editors and agents to select exactly what they want to see. This might, on a basic level, mean subscribing to a feed showing the latest crime novels, or the latest memoirs, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t search a book’s ‘tags’ for an even more precisely targeted update. Want to be alerted when a new serial-killer manuscript arrives? Have a hole in your list the size of a female forensic investigator? A feed-based slush pile offers all these opportunities, and more.

While authonomy’s aim is to make things better for unpublished writers, we understand that by far the best way to achieve this is to make things easier for editors. The simple syndication of our pitches is just the very first development of the tools we’ll be adding (of which more to come) which aim to make the submissions process more effective – in short, to make the 'slush-pile' more inviting to those to whom new talent is valuable, and currently difficult to discover. Because the more manuscripts pass over more desks, in more countries, the more opportunities there are for writers from a whole heap of different backgrounds to get that all-important break.

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A Step by Step Guide to RSS

Confused by RSS? As discussed elsewhere on the blog, we've added RSS buttons to make it easier for you to keep up with everything that's happening on authonomy.com - but not everyone's in the know about the really simple world of syndication. Read on for a step by step beginners' guide on how to begin.

In short, RSS allows you to collect in one place a constantly-updating list of links and articles pulled from your favourite sites - saving you the hassle of visiting each in turn to find out what's new. In simplest terms, it's like creating your own online newspaper or magazine - produced entirely from sites you've handpicked. Click here for an example of a page of feeds I've pulled from various publishing blogs...

There are a heap of companies offering free web space to create a page like this - amongst them Netvibes, Bloglines and Yahoo - but one of the simplest routes is just to use Google. With the 'iGoogle' service, you can now personalise that big white Google search page to also display information specifically relevant to you, pulled from whichever sources you choose.

To add authonomy feeds to your google search screen, you'll first need to set up an iGoogle page at http://www.google.com/, which will probably look much like the screenshot below. If you're google page doesn't already look like this, just click on the small blue 'igoogle' link in the top corner to start setting up your own 'reader' page - it's very simple indeed, and on-screen instructions will talk you through the process.



In a new window open up authonomy.com, and look for the little orange RSS buttons (see the picture at the top of this post). Right now there are two options - you can choose to be updated about each new book that our members upload to the site (in which case, click the RSS button on the homepage), or you can choose a feed that lists all the latest comments left on any particular book (in which case click the RSS button above the thread of comments that particularly interests you).

Because I've got some fairly old software, clicking the RSS icon below the 'latest books' list presents me with a terrifying page of computer-speak, but if you're using newer versions of Windows (or you're on a mac) the page you get will look a little more inviting. Whatever comes up, you'll need to highlight and copy the web address, as below.



This web address is the key to setting up the feed. Go back to the iGoogle page you've created, and click the 'Add Stuff' link, which you'll find in the top right hand corner of your 'iGoogle' page. It will bring up a screen similiar to that below - you need to find the link named "Add Feed or Gadget" in the left hand column. Click the link, and in the box that appears, paste in the web address which you copied from authonomy. Click 'Add' to finish.



That's it! When you go back to your main iGoogle page, you'll see that your chosen feed has appeared amidst all the other content there. By clicking and dragging the blue bars at the top of each box you can arrange all your 'feeds' as you want them on the iGoogle page - and by clicking on the links that sound most interesting you can dive straight into authonomy, and straight into the content you want to read.



These feeds will update as authonomy itself updates, so you'll always be shown links to the latest goings-on around the site when ever you visit Google to search. Now that you've set up an iGoogle RSS reader page, you can also add feeds from any other site that interests you by repeating the process - the BBC, MySpace, blogs, even your email account. Before you finish, just remember to save your page (and if you don't have a google account, you'll need to create one) so that whenever you visit http://www.google.com/, all your feeds will appear as you left them.

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Welcoming the woodcut...

A sunny spring clean for the authonomy blog, and a first public outing for our startling new logo, up there in the header. Some of you will love it, some of you will hate it - we think it's quite fun...

The blog's new and impressively yellow rebrand heralds the imminent arrival of authonomy's private beta launch. While we've still a little way to go on the full development (there's plenty of bells and whistles to be added), a site like authonomy is really nothing without its community. And on that basis, we'll soon be delighted to invite the first few hundred names on our email list to set up residence, behind closed doors, in the very first incarnation of the site.

Many thanks to all of you for your interest, and for your patience. If you're not yet on our list it's not too late to whack in your email address over on the holding page at authonomy.com - check back soon, or subscribe to our feed, and we'll keep you up to date...

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Addressing Some Issues

From the moment we announced the authonomy project it became very clear what writers’ principal reservations were likely to be. Do I lose rights if I post work online? Will publishers and agents be put off if my book has been read on the internet? What’s to stop people copying my work?

If you’re particularly confused over copyright, you’ll find a very simple guide to the facts elsewhere on the blog – but read on below for some quick and simple clarifications on the current hot authonomy topics.

First of all, we should make it clear that authonomy won’t be asking for any of your rights, other than a very specific licence to display your work on our site – and of course you’ll be able to take down your manuscript whenever you choose. The simple fact of posting your work online does not in any way affect your legal ownership over it.

Secondly, while we can’t claim to speak for all of our colleagues in the book world, there’s really no particular reason why a manuscript that’s been displayed online should lose any of its value to an interested publisher.

Indeed, it’s central to the authonomy concept that a writer with a proven readership is often more valuable to a publisher, not less. Book companies now regularly snap up volumes from high profile bloggers and promising self-publishers with existing readerships. It’s a good thing to prove that you’ve the enthusiasm and the skills to help make your project a success.

Thirdly and finally, what if people steal my work? Well, we’ve taken some small practical steps to make worried authors feel more secure: we’ve disabled the ability to ‘cut’ and ‘copy’ on the pages on which your work will be displayed, and we wont be offering an option to print.

It’s also important to remember that in the UK you do own copyright of your work as soon as it’s created (whether written down or saved to a file). What exactly that copyright covers can be open to debate (on the whole it’s words yes, ideas no – and you can get the low down here) but unpublished authors do have exactly the same legal rights as their published peers when plagiarism has taken place.

It’s immensely unlikely that someone will choose to steal your work, but if they really want to they’ll probably find a way - and having your book on sale in thousands of bookstores worldwide doesn’t reduce that risk, as some unlucky published authors will attest. Some writers are very relaxed about the actual likelihood and impact of plagiarism – others more anxious. As for us, we believe that your talent is better displayed than kept hidden – and that the chances of good things happening are more likely the more hands your manuscript passes through, and the more people you enlist in your support.

If you feel the same way, we’d love to have you on board.

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Back to the Blog

Silence on the blog this month - since New Year we've had our heads down as we mull over, scrub up and altogether dress down our upcoming site.

Needless to say, we’re still here. January in London has been filled with all things authonomy, of which the only sign now is the mountain of documents lying on, over, and under my desk. Who knew that building a website would require so many sheets of paper?

Throughout our efforts we've been reading all your comments, which have certainly been lively. It’s great to get so much feedback as we soldier on with development, so thanks for all your impressions – and please do keep them coming as we add more info to the blog.

I think it’s our turn to fill you in on a few things now, so over the next few weeks we’ll try and answer some more of your queries (starting, I would say, with your concerns about copyright) and we’ll also let you know a little more how authonomy will work. Keep an eye for more posts to come.

And finally, if you’ve found us by some other means please do go and leave your e-mail address over at authonomy.com. Behind our unassuming holding page we’re beavering away at the site proper (honest) – so please do register your interest now, and we’ll drop you a line when you can really start getting involved...

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Welcome To The authonomy Blog!

After months of hard work on the authonomy community site - not to mention a flurry of publicity when we announced the idea in October - it's great to finally have a space to talk in a little more detail about what we've been up to.

Authonomy will be launching in phases throughout the first half of 2008, but in the meantime we've set up a temporary home here to keep you filled in on how things are going.

Here we'll be posting updates on the project, and discussing some of the issues and motivations that lie behind our initiative. But we also hope we can drum up some wider debate on these pages, so we'll be featuring selected articles from editors and from authors too, offering advice and opinion on writing, reading and the world of books at large.

Thanks for stopping by - we're grateful for your interest, and we'd love to hear your views. Please take a look around, and check back soon for more!

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What is authonomy?

Here’s some news for you - publishers need manuscripts.

It’s hardly the most radical concept. Authors have always been at the heart of the publishing process. Every publishing phenomenon for years has started with a writer, a desk – and a lot of hard work.

So why then does the publishing world seem so impregnable to so many? Only a very few major publishers continue to accept manuscripts direct from writers – and now even some senior agents only accept proposals by recommendation.

Certainly the hunger for fresh writing remains as strong as ever – it’s not for want of enthusiasm that the ‘slush pile’ (as the stacks of new manuscripts are termed) receives such scant regard from so many in the business.

It’s more that amidst the flurry of proposals that fill the daily mail bag (proposals that vary quite wildly in quality) the chance of the right book landing on the right desk - and at the right time - has long been creeping perilously close to zero. But if we could start again; use the internet to flush out the brightest, the freshest new literature from the widest pool of talent possible – what might emerge?

This is the issue authonomy intends to address. In a nutshell: we’ll be asking writers to upload as much of their manuscript as they choose to an online platform for visitors to read, review, and talk about. And we’ll be using the public’s recommendations to search out the cream of the crop – and showcasing those titles to the book world at large.

It’ll be a transparent system, and most importantly it puts readers back in the spotlight; recognising that it’s the very people that search out, digest, and spread the word about the best new books that have always kept publishing alive.

And while we’ll be keeping a close eye on what emerges, it really isn’t just about getting signed: authonomy is a community - not a writing competition - and like the best communities we hope it will be a bundle of ideas, opinions and voices; swinging, we would hope, from the deadly serious to the downright quirky.

We hope there’ll be something for everyone – and that we can make it easier for readers themselves to find what they’re after. Between the unlimited inventories of the online bookshops and the thousands of writers going it alone in the new self publishing revolution, there have never been so many types of books catering for so many different audiences – and equally there’s never been so much content competing for attention. This world favours the tech-savvy, and the publicity-hungry, but what of the quieter author? Must we really hope that those who can shout loudest will also be the best writers? Or can we find a better way?

Questions, questions – these are just some of the issues the authonomy team has been batting around for almost a year. One thing’s for sure: whether you’re a reader, writer, agent or publisher, this is an exciting time for books. In our small corner of HarperCollins we’ve been given a chance to do something a little different.

We’d really love your help.

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