Yesterday I flew back from Book Expo America; it was a really great this year and there are loads of exciting new books to look forward to in the fall. I'll post some pictures later.
In this post I'd like to let other writers know about Book Country. I heard about their booth Wednesday night while on the shuttle back to the hotel. I was sitting next to a woman from Connecticut who had a booth to market a collection of major league baseball coloring books for a company she's started and her booth was nestled into one of the spots at the far end of the conference hall and along the back wall. Definitely a lower traffic area. The booth next to hers was for Book Country. When she heard I was a writer as well as a librarian she told me about them, so naturally I made a point to stop by and visit.
Book Country (Penguin) is a bit like Authonomy (HarperCollins) if you've used that site, but Book Country is running on its beta version right now and since it's new it doesn't have as many users yet.
Individuals can sign-up for accounts and they can access and critique the works of other writers. Accounts are free and once a member has critiqued at least three manuscripts they become eligible to have their work critiqued by others too. If you're posting a manuscript of your own you get to place it in the genre(s) you think most suitable and you get to write your own summary to pitch your book to prospective readers.
It looks like an excellent site designed to educate writers and readers and let them learn by doing. I've just signed up, but have yet to do any critiquing or uploading. I'll probably look around for a little while and do some critiquing before I decide on uploading anything.
Have you tried one of these sites, or another one that's similar? Which one was it and how did you like it?
Here's a video posted to YouTube by Book Country:
1 comment:
So I've just submitted my first review on Book Country. Overall it was a pretty good experience. A few things in the program that I wish worked differently - or maybe it was just me doing something wrong :), but I really liked it.
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