As you may have heard, the online writing community Authonomy, owned by HarperCollins UK, is closing on September 30th, 2015. Many Authonomy members have joined Book Country as a new place to workshop their books. We want to welcome them and say how glad we are to have you all here with us.

I have received some questions from new members, so I thought it would be a good idea to explain some of the ways Book Country might be different from Authonomy or other writing community sites you have participated in:

• Like Authonomy, Book Country is owned by a big 5 publisher, but in our case, it’s Penguin Random House.
• Book Country’s staff is based in the US, but we have members from all over the world, including the UK, Ireland, Australia, Japan, Finland, Croatia, Canada, New Zealand, France, and more.
• On Book Country, we have 1:1 feedback, which means you have to review another member’s book before you can post your own.
• Book Country members are writers and authors at all levels of publishing experience, including authors who’ve had success with both traditional and self-publishing and are using the site to get feedback on new work.
• Book Country offers self-publishing services, including a free DIY self-publishing package and a paid package with an author earnings rate of 100%. You can find out more about our packages here.
• The Book Country blog is dedicated to bringing our members the latest news and trends about the craft of writing and business of publishing. We’ve got tons of helpful content from in-the-know authors, agents, editors, book marketers, and other industry experts. We also showcase events, giveaways, and sweepstakes there.
• Book Country is publisher-agnostic, which means that we feature books on the site from all over the publishing spectrum, and we support and celebrate all of our members’ successes.
• Our patented Genre Map is one of the things we’re best known for—the Genre Map helps members figure out how to categorize their book and learn how to find an audience of enthusiastic readers.
• We have just under 20K members, though of course that grows every day.
• Book Country does not have guaranteed editor feedback for highly rated manuscripts via contesting. We do, however, scout for talent on the site, and recommend manuscripts with potential to both editors and agents that we have relationships with. This video shows member Alex Rosa talking about being picked up by Penguin.
• If you’re looking for intensive feedback with a critique partner, sign up for the Book Country Buddy Program.
• To learn more about Book Country and how authors have found support for their books within our community, read our white paper, “Treat Your Book Like a Start-Up.”

I’ve already connected with lots of the new members coming from Authonomy, but if I haven’t sent you a connection request yet, please do not hesitate to go over to my profile and connect with me first. As the director of Book Country, I can help show you around and answer questions. Once we are connected, you can private message me, or you can post questions in the thread below. On email you can reach me at lucy@bookcountry.com.

 Thank you for joining us! 

--edited by Lucy Silag - Book Country Director on 8/25/2015, 3:47 PM--