I was having a good time on HarperCollins’s new peer review online slush pile, Authonomy. Writers upload chapters or whole books and the community of writers comment. Later, readers came on stream. My book, ‘Old Habits Die Hard’ rose to number 12 (first five actually get read by editors) and was virtually number one in the crime and thriller sub-categories.
Then, suddenly, it plummeted to 52. There had been grumblings about ’sock puppets’ (multiple identities registered but only one writer) and some books did skyrocket to the top overnight.
But HC’s FAQ encourages writers to market their book and get people to back it – in the spirit of the site, of course. So, I took that literally and put links onto my website newsletters, sent email pitches to reading groups that enjoy thrillers and encouraged people to join the site and back my book if they liked it. I also encouraged them to take part in the site and look at other books, some really good.
So, I can only assume it worked because it was backed up to 64 bookshelves. Then, without warning or even an explanation, they removed 35 bookshelves that they must have thought were suspect for some reason and wham! Down went my book. There was talk on the forum of using the same IP address from a computer but, I have no idea about that. A group of people may well all register on the same computer.
So, is it worth spending more time on this site? Probably not. I think I’d rather spend it writing even though I learned a good deal from other writers. It’s a pity.
