Today marks the public opening of an online talent seeking / gathering site by HarperCollins, a publishing house with dozens of imprints whose credits include work by Neal Stephenson, Michael Crichton, William Gibson, Neil Gaiman, Paulo Coelho, Lemony Snicket, Clive Barker, Michael Chabon, Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing, and heaps more.

It seems the colossal publisher is embracing the trend of technology and decentralized popularity in art. Their site authonomy, fresh out of private beta, uses a peer review and recommendation system to find the cream of the internet-lit crop, which they hope is tasty enough to publish, like, for realz.

From the site:

If you’re a writer, authonomy is the place to show your face – and show off your work on the web. Whether you’re unpublished, self-published or just getting started, all you need is a few chapters to start building your profile online, and start connecting with the authonomy community.

And if you’re a reader, blogger publisher or agent, authonomy is for you too. The book world is kept alive by those who search out, digest and spread the word about the best new books – authonomy invites you to join our community, champion the best new writing and build a personal profile that really reflects your tastes, opinions and talent-spotting skills.

The publishing world is changing. One thing’s for sure: whether you’re a reader, writer, agent or publisher, this is an exciting time for books. In our corner of HarperCollins we’ve been given a chance to do something a little different.

For the lay internet cynic: what this boils down to is a massive corporation foisting its slush pile on a community of slavering wannabe authors so it can fire some in-house readers and save a buck. But even I, cynic extraordinaire, get butterflies at the prize they're dangling. It's a huge payoff for a bit of reading and surfing, which we all do anyway. So, writers, want your name up there on that stellar list? Sign up and goddamn write your hearts out. I don't care if you +fav this shit but pass it on, eh?


Authonomy


(If the closed version of the site comes up, just refresh a few times to get the new open version.)