Has anyone come across this site?

www.thefrontlist.com

Their blurb is as follows:

The Frontlist earns its money by asking for £10 for writers to view the critiques that have been provided on their work. This is the only charge that the site makes. If you do not wish to view the critiques that have been provided on your work and simply want to submit a sample to see if it achieves a top rating, you may do so for FREE. Your decision on whether or not to pay to view critiques will not affect the overall score that your work receives.

Submit

The Frontlist supports a range of genres. Each is tied to an agent or publisher. When you submit your work, we ask you to provide the genre, a synopsis and up to two consecutive chapters (currently restricted to 3000 words per chapter).

Critique

Once you have submitted your work, we will allocate you with up to five submissions to critique. You will be able to provide line by line annotations on the work and will be invited to critique it according to criteria that we have set.

Monitor

Once you have critiqued the submissions, you will be able track your own submission, which will also receive five reviews. If it achieves a score above a threshold (225 out of a possible 250) then it will automatically be seen by the agent or publisher responsible for your work's genre. The Frontlist does not climb into any deal that may follow. This site is a vehicle for discovering new talent, nothing more. To find out which genres are allocated to which agent or publisher please click on the 'genres' link on the home page.

If your work is unsuccessful, it will be archived. You will then be able to resubmit it, perhaps making changes in accordance with the critiques that have been provided.

Well . . . . .. In theory, it sounds good.

But who are the agents and publsihers? Do reputable agents have time to get involved in something like this???????

Does sound good. Simple and effective.

Hmmm, we get work critiqued on here for free. Yes we pay a membership fee, but that is for a whole year and we get a lot more for our money than just comment on our work.

Sounds a bit dodgy to me, but then I am very cynical

Katerina

there's been some discussion about this on Scott Pack's blog at www.thefridayproject.co.uk/pack this week.

Katerina,
I suppose the difference is that is supposedly gets passed to someone in the industry, if it scores enough based on a some sort of system. On the other hand you can' tell who these people are.

M

From Publishing News... The Friday Project's pretty new, but A M Heath is venerable...

Emma

THE FRIDAY PROJECT and the AM Heath literary agency have put their backing behind a site aimed at encouraging the development of new fiction writers. Thefrontlist.com was launched earlier this year by a team of web developers, with the publisher and agent now partnering the site with a view to taking on new work. Users are required to register on the site before submitting their fiction, with the community then reviewing the work of others. Material which has received the highest level of recommendations will then be viewed by The Friday Project or AM Heath. The site’s creator, Tom Lodge, said that it will provide a welcome alternative route to publication for aspiring writers, and Scott Pack, Commercial Director of The Friday Project, added, “The Internet is a great showcase for many styles of writing, but up until now fiction writers haven’t been served particularly well. We are therefore great fans of The Frontlist and look forward to many hours browsing its content and commenting on submissions. It should be lots of fun and we hope to find some great novels to publish as a result.” The Friday Project will look at general fiction, horror, humour and science fiction, while A M Heath will look at literary, historical, thrillers and crime fiction. Users are not charged for submitting work for consideration but will be charged £10 to see all the reviews of their work.

AM Heath advertise themselves as 'the oldest literary agency in the world'.

It sounds pretty fine, then.

I've just signed up with them, so I'll let you know how it goes.
Tony

Good luck, Tony.

Thanks, sammy. And thanks to Mischa for bringing this to our attention.
Tony

Yay!! Good luck Tony.

Yes, Tony, good luck, and do keep us posted - it's a very interesting initiative.

Emma

It looks as if there's nothing to lose; if you don't pay the fee, you will still be able to see what sort of ratings your work receives and your work will still be eligible for submission to an angent (altho payment is required if you wish to view your crits). Worth a shot, I'd think...

Sounds a bit like the YouWriteOn website run by the Arts council, which is free.