Sunday 25 January 2009

Beat the Slush Pile at HarperCollins

HarperCollins has an online manuscript site, authonomy.com where writers submit their unsolicited manuscripts to be read by book readers. These book readers endorse new talent and validate its commercial appeal as part of HarperCollins’ acquisitions process. The manuscripts which are voted to the top are guaranteed to be read by a HarperCollins editor each month.

Harper Collins just purchased three books straight from this manuscript site which were Miranda Dickinson's romantic book Coffee at Kowalski's, Steven Dunne's detective story The Reaper, and Lynne Barrett-Lee's real life story, Never Say Die. All three authors sold world rights as well.

14 comments:

Shelley Munro said...

Thanks for the link, Barbara. This sounds interesting.

Gary's third pottery blog said...

Well that's good to know, and look at these pics below. We have a wee little glen and stream nearby that has at least 6 nesting pairs of cardinals living there. At noontime they are all over the place, eating berries and whatnot, chattering, a real relief from winter blues!

laughingwolf said...

great stuff, thx barbara...

David Cranmer said...

Thanks for the link!

Barbara Martin said...

Shelley, it's certainly a start for some authors willing to take a chance on this opportunity. Their books are meant to be read.

Gary, Cardinals are always happy wee birds.

Barbara Martin said...

Tony, writers have to try almost everything to get their work out there to be read.

Barbara Martin said...

David, food for thought for writers.

Charles Gramlich said...

Wow, I may have to check this out.

Barbara Martin said...

Charles, from what I read in the FAQs there are talent scouts from other publishers who go through the books too.

Shauna Roberts said...

Thanks for posting about this new method for finding books. It's great to see publishers being innovative and giving authors a chance to bypass the slush pile. I've already passed this information on to a bunch of unpublished writers.

Barbara Martin said...

Shauna, from the information I read online from the site they are bypassing the guery letter and synopsis, and looking only at the manuscript itself. That is the true test of whether or not they are going to purchase the story.

laughingwolf said...

i passed your l;ink on to others, barbara :D

bindu said...

Very interesting. Thanks for the info.

L.A. Mitchell said...

Thanks so much, Barbara. I'll look into it for sure.