Yep. After seven years, Authonomy, a writer's community run by Harper Collins, is shutting down. But why? Well, before I give my personal opinion on this, let me start by telling you my experience with Authonomy.
I first joined in 2012, intrigued by the idea of connecting with other writers and getting feedback, because I'd spent my previous writing years on my Jack Jones. I had no one to talk to about writing, or anyone who could offer help. I started to think writing was a lonely path to take.
When I joined Authonomy, all that changed. Within a few days of uploading my work in progress, I was receiving lots of critique, the good, bad and the ugly. Authonomy became almost like a second home. I made a ton of friends, not just people to talk to about writing, but also people who put a lot of time and effort into helping me make my manuscript what it is today. Let me tell you, when I first uploaded my manuscript, it was awful. (I didn't think it was at the time) But it truly was.
Over the two years I spent on Authonomy, I re-wrote my novel more times than I care to remember, I learned how to cut back on my wordiness, fixed my bad grammar, and so on. I was amazed by all there was to learn. I was also amazed by the support in the community. When I joined, that's what Authonomy was about. Being part of the community. Helping each other. We were all in the same boat - writers trying to become better and hoping one day to reach that goal of publication.
But something happened to Authonomy. It started to change, and not for the better. Firstly, for those of you who didn't read the blog entry Authonomy posted, below are the reasons they have given as to why they are shutting the website down:
- Unfortunately in recent years publishing of titles from the site has slowed as we have opened other submissions channels, and the community has become smaller, so the decision to close Authonomy has been made.
I first noticed people leaving Authonomy when 'trolling' became a problem in the group forums. I personally didn't see this as a reason to leave, yes, it was annoying at times, but I never took any notice of the trolling. I wasn't on the website to get involved with bickering. Then came the launch of the new website - this is when the community diminished.
BUT, this isn't the reason so many people left. I think a lot of people, including myself, had been thinking about retiring their accounts for a while, and the launch of the new website was the final decision making factor. I remember when they first revealed the layout for the new website. Straight away, I thought, I don't like it. It was too 'professional' looking. It completely lost the community feel that the old layout had. And, along with the new layout came all the confusion, the glitches, and having to start all over again. When I say start all over again, I mean literally. A lot of people who had spent years, including myself, putting in a lot of hard work to get their book noticed in the ranks, suddenly found their book back to square one. I think this was enough to make people think 'sod it' and they left.
But, why were people leaving prior to this? Or thinking of leaving? I think I have the answer - it's because Authonomy wasn't a community anymore. Authonomy had become a place of competiveness, a place where people would do anything to try and get their book up in the ranks to make the editors desk. Of course, a bit of competing is healthy. We all want the big time. But that became all it was about It wasn't about connecting with other writers anymore, or helping each other out. It became a 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' kind of attitude.
When I first joined, people would willingly read and review my book with no expectations of me returning the favour. They read the book because they found the pitch intriguing. Of course, most of the time, I did return the favour, because someone had gone out of their way to take a read of my book and give me their thoughts. But there was never an expectation to do so. My messages were flooded by people asking me to read and review their book and they would do the same for me. Suddenly, next to no one was reading or reviewing others work just because they wanted to. When this started happening, I found myself spending more time reviewing other peoples books than I did working on my own novel. Seriously, I spent hours a night reading and critiquing people, because if you didn't, you weren't going to get much help off anyone.
People also went to the extent of rating other people's books 1 star (without even reading them) just to push them down in the ranks. This happened to me just before the launch of the new website, and THIS was the reason I left. I was excited to see my novel at number 1 in the weekly top rated books. Within minutes, my book wasn't even in the top five. I thought, that's weird. I looked down the list and Found my book at position 22. I wondered how it was possible to go from rank 1 to 22 in the space of a few minutes. I checked my rating, and I nearly threw up. My rating had dropped from a 4 to a 3.2. I couldn't believe it. People had been purposely rating my book one star so they could over take my place in the weekly top rated.
And this is also the reason, as Authonomy put it, that publishing of titles from the website had slowed. Because it wasn't about what book was great to read anymore, it was about how many people backed your book and rated your book highly. Some people just wanted to get to that desk, not caring about who they trampled in the process. This is why so many people left Authonomy. And this is the reason why it's closing. Because what was a community of writers helping one another and supporting one another, became a place of competition, spamming, trolling and selfishness.
I put this to the test a few weeks ago, and uploaded my book onto the website. Now, when I first joined in 2012, within a few minutes of registering, I had a ton of lovely inbox messages from people welcoming me to the website, and within hours of submitting my book, I had people reading and commenting and telling me all about certain writers groups in the forums that I could join, and so on. This time around, I had my book on the website for three weeks. I didn't receive one inbox message. I had zero reads. Zero comments. Nothing. But I bet your bottom dollar if I began messaging people telling them I would back their book if they backed mine, or telling them I would critique my work if I critiqued theirs, I would have been getting messages, comments and reads galore.
Having said all that, I was still sad hearing about Authonomy closing. Because it's where my writing came to life. It's where I went from just a girl writing a story, to a writer. It's where I discovered my talent, and my passion for writing.
But in truth, I think Authonomy died a long time ago. It died the moment people cared more about getting their book to the editors desk than they did working on their manuscript and getting involved with the community. People lost sight of why they joined Authonomy in the first place.
So, here's my goodbye to Authonomy. Thanks for giving me a platform to make my writing what it is today, and thank you to everyone who ever commented on my book, gave me feedback and supported me. I'll always be grateful.