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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Penguin's Book Country

Looking to support and develop writers of genre fiction, Penguin is launching a public beta of Book Country, a free online writing community and publishing services venture, Publisher's Weekly reports. Book Country, which has been in development for over a year, offers writers a place to upload new works and receive feedback and criticism from a community of writers and readers; a place for agents and editors to look for new talent; and eventually the venture will offer a suite of self-publishing services that will offer e-book and print publication for a fee.

So if you're an author, which do you choose: Harpercollins' Authonomy or Penguin's Book Country?

A few pros to Book Country:
  • An emphasis on helping authors get valuable feedback
  • Former literary agent and popular Twitter personality Colleen Lindsay is a Book Country community manager and a moderater on the boards
  • It features a Genre Map, an interactive literary “map” of the known literary world, that uses a variety of landmark titles in various genres (say Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress for Hard Boiled Noir) to point Book Country members to literary stars as well as literary hopefuls working in the genre
A few pros to Authonomy:
  • A focus on getting great books published
  • A public scoreboard
  • Been around longer, so better established and perhaps a larger community
  • Clear writing tips in addition to discussion
  • Lower barriers to entry as you can upload your works right away without critiquing others first
Anyone have any experiences with either community, that they'd like to share?

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