inkpop is a recent innovation by HarperCollins Publishers. Providing an online community for aspiring authors, members can vote for their favourite stories, which will then be read by the HarperCollins Editorial Board.
The website explains more:
inkpop is an online community that connects rising stars in teen lit with talent-spotting readers and publishing professionals. Our social networking forum spotlights aspiring authors and the readers who provide the positive springboard for feedback. inkpop members play a critical role in deciding who will land a publishing contract with HarperCollins. Whose work will you help rise to the top?
The FAQ page explains:
inkpop invites unpublished, published, and self-published authors to create their own personal inkpop page and post their books, short stories, essays, and poetry for public viewing. There is no word-count minimum for short stories, essays, and poetry, but authors must upload books that are at least 10,000 words in order for them to be read and critiqued by the inkpop community.
Visitors can comment on submissions and choose their top five favorites. inkpop counts the number of times a project appears to be among the five favorites of community members and uses that information to rank the projects. inkpop also recognizes the visitors who consistently recommend the best projects and uses that info to rank the most influential Trendsetters, who play a critical role in selecting top authors.
In short, talent development is a collaborative process at inkpop. Readers are talent scouts and critics who become community leaders in their search for standout projects. In turn, writers get to load up on valuable feedback from a target audience and make their projects the very best they can be.
Please note that users must be over 13 years of age and currently, English is the only language that submissions are accepted in. As per any resource used with students, please check the site out for yourself as the content is constantly changing.
inkpop sounds like a supportive community for aspiring authors. It is great to see publishers creating such resources for would-be authors.
A very neat way to get writing recognized and exposed. The collaborative nature is great, I imagine that it is a help for improving writing along the way.
Hello,
I thought you might be interested in a new site that has recently launched: at http://www.slushpilereader.com authors submit their manuscripts, readers read comment and vote for their favorites. Slush Pile Reader will then publish (edit, market & distribute) the most popular manuscript(s). There are no fees or cost what so ever involved for the author – Slush Pile Reader is an ordinary publisher with a modern way of discovering great new books. It’s also a great place to meet readers and writers from all over the world.
Best,
Pascal
Hi Pascal,
Thanks for the info on Slush Pile Reader. The big question is, what do selected authors get paid?
What titles have you published so far?
Thanks.
So far we have published no titles. We are new on the market.
We are preparing a publishing contract that should, hopefully, be ready during the next two weeks. The contract will be up on the site for everyone to see and at the cut of date (still to be decided) the highest ranked manuscript(s) will be offered this contract, and have a set amount of time to accept or reject it.
The basics of the contract are as follows:
– we want exclusive global English language rights for trade and paperback editions as well as e-book and audio books
– we want non-exclusive right to a lot of other stuff as well but they will all be “subject to authors approval”
– royalty rates will be 15% on list price from the first book on trade editions and 10% on list price from the first book on mass market editions
– for audio and e books we want a 50%/50% split.
We will not try to trick the author or to make them give up rights that may or may not be interesting in the future etc. Apart from wanting global English language rights we are surpassing what the Authors Guild of America deems proper in their Model Trade Book Contract on most points, and certainly on those that count. We want global English language rights since we solicit manuscripts from all over the world and we intend to distribute and sell internationally very early on.
We think that the publishing industry has become, or maybe always been, an unhealthy place with practices that are counter productive to good, and successful, business.
We are not, like many other publishers, trying to trick the author out of “photo copying” rights or movie rights and other subsidiary rights.
We are, as we think most publishers should, in the business of publishing and selling books – not grabbing for whatever we can. We believe that others are better suited to sell, for instance, photocopying rights etc. However, should we stumble upon a great deal we will go ahead but it will always be subject to the authors approval.
We see the author as our partner not, which seems customary today, as a supplier to negotiate the best price from.