Authonomy lets readers judge unpublished manuscripts

One of the less pleasant parts of the book publishing industry is the slush pile — the stack of unsolicited manuscripts that no-one wants to read, but which might just contain the next Dan Brown or Tim Winton amongst the detritus. UK publisher HarperCollins is experimenting with using the crowdsourcing approach to change its approach to the slush pile, and its site Authonomy moving out of private beta this week. Authonomy lets authors upload chapters of work in progress and comment on each others’ writing, with the promise that the highest-ranked works (based on site user recommendations) will be considered by Harper Collins editors. Managing the process as the beta expands could be challenging, I suspect, but it’s a novel way of identifying new writing talent.