YouWriteOn Offers Free Publishing to the first 5,000 Replies

I received the following email from www.youwriteon.com just now.  The first 5,000 that respond to them will be published for free and made available through their online bookstore.  For an additional $40, you can make your book available through other venues. Here are the details….

Dear YouWriteOn member

Arts Council funded YouWriteOn.com will publish the first 5,000 writers who contact us for Free – Fiction & Non-Fiction

To participate follow these 2 steps:

1) Email youwriteon@googlemail.com, and inside your email add your name, address, telephone number, book title, genre, length of your book, and a synopsis up to 50 words

2) We will contact the first 5,000 people who email us by 31st October 2008. Your book will be ready to order by readers as a paperback by Christmas. Open to UK and US residents.

YouWriteOn.com – Our Free Publishing Aims

Our aim is to give the opportunity to new writers to help create success for their books. Since YouWriteOn began in 2006, we have seen our authors achieve success through both mainstream and alternative publishing. This summer’s member successes include a six figure publication deal with Random House for Caligula author Douglas Jackson, and member Keith Mansfield achieving a three book deal with Costa Award winning publisher Quercus with his children’s novel Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London. Many other YouWriteOn writers have received rave reviews from fellow writers and readers onsite, and having a book available to order gives new writers an added opportunity to try to achieve success.

Books will be available to order through the YouWriteOn website, and members will be able to get in touch with readers and reviewers who have enjoyed their book excerpts on site. YouWriteOn authors will receive 60% royalties for each copy sold to the public, compared to 12 to15% royalties that authors usually receive through mainstream publishing. Your book will be of the same quality as a bookstore paperback. You retain all rights to your book at all times. Open to UK and US residents only.

If you achieve success with your book and a publisher offers you a good deal, you can take up their offer straight away without any obligation to YouWriteOn.com. In Autumn 2007, YouWriteOn published Bufflehead Sisters by member Patricia J. DeLois – available to order online as a paperback – and the successful author achieved a 2 book deal with Penguin this summer. This was after bookstores contacted us so that they could stock the novel, and after thousands of online sales through us. Publishing is completely free through our setup process when writers send us their completed books.

That sounds good, but I would also like my book available online to order through Waterstones, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, WH Smith and other book distributors?

Should you wish to potentially achieve a much higher readership through being available to order through all major booksellers throughout the UK and US, such as Waterstones, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and WH Smith’s, then you can do so for £39.99 through our separate partnership with Legend Press. Legend Press has been shortlisted for five publishing and business awards over the last 18 months, and in 2008 one of their titles Salt & Honey by Candi Miller was named as one of World Book Day’s ‘Top Ten Books to Talk About’. You retain all rights to your book. Email YouWriteOn@legendpress.co.uk to take advantage of this offer. Open to applicants of all nationalities.

Additional Good YWO News – Random House, publisher of authors such as John Grisham and Bill Bryson, has agreed to review the YouWriteOn Top Ten writers for a further six months between October 2008 and March 2009.

I will not be participating in this despite having a full manuscript almost ready for publication. I dabbled with YWO earlier this year, but gave up.  I was putting too much time and effort into the “homework” they assign and not getting worthy results.  For those who may not know, you post chapters of your work by earning points.  You earn points by reviewing other author’s chapters and then taking a test on what you read as proof that you actually read it.  (The author creates the 5 question multiple choice quiz at the time they upload their chapter.)  You only earn the point if you pass the quiz.  You can then spend your points on chances to upload more chapters and getting your work assigned to other members at random.

Here’s what’s nerve wrecking about this process….reviewers can decline your work if they aren’t interested.  You will get your point back if they do.  I hated this because sometimes my work sat for weeks assigned to reviewers before they replied, and sometimes I didn’t get my points back.  And like I said, I spent too much time and effort trying to give good feedback as a reviewer, but got crap advice from others who were reading my stuff.  I also sat for weeks at a time waiting to get reviews back, only again to be disappointed by their quality.

YWO prides itself on two authors who did get “discovered” and offered nice contracts from their website (as mentioned above).  Wow!  Two authors…out of who knows how many members?

I see this contest as just a ploy to increase their own revenues.  Sure, the percentage the author earns is enticing, but notice they don’t tell you what their cover prices are!  Also, this is an overseas based site, so shipping to the US will probably be hefty.

Should anyone out there in Lulu land, who also dabbles in YWO, happen to take them up on this offer, keep us posted on the adventure.