Yesterday I met the newest editor in imprint at HC and she told me that she reads the entries on Authonomy regularly.
This year she has chosen two and convinced her commissioning ediotr to make an offer.
The books will be published later this year.
She was very, very excited about it.
Er...that's it really but I felt it was something positive to share.
HB x

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- in my imprint - which is Avon.

That's nice to know Helen, but, well, two? - it's not many, is it, considering the time and trouble people go to to promote their mss on that site.

To be fair, Naomi, I don'y know anything about the site. Are there lots of draft books on it?
And yes two isn't many - but then my imprint only puts put about 60 books a year, so not too bad. I guess it depends whether all the other imprints are picking stuff up too. And I don't know the answer to that one.
HB x

I had heard that some agents are trawling the site, and some authors have been signed up, but, yes, there are many hundreds if not thousands of mss uploaded on it.

But that's just the usual odds of getting pickedby an agent or publisher, isn't it? Two to hundreds and thousands. So sounds like it's as good a bet as submitting to a big agency. I dunno - know nothing about it really.

The first couple of stories that MS had been picked up turned out to have been picked up off the slushpile, though the book was on Authonomy as well.

There's nothing wrong with putting your work where editors might see it: it's the work it apparently takes to get it to the top of the rankings which seems to me perhaps better spent else where.

Emma