“We’re on a mission to flush out the brightest, freshest new writing talent around.” It’s a nice tagline but Authonomy is a weird site. Set up by HarperCollins to help writers find their feet, its premise is that novelists can put their work out there and get the reaction of the most important critics there are –- the reading public. Anyone can post up to 10,000 words of their novel, along with a cover design and a blurb, then sit back and wait for reactions. Every month, the 5 which receive the most votes will make it to a Commissioning Editor’s desk. The idea is that people who don’t know their way around the literary scene can make it without agents, which is nice and warm and fluffy. But it’s HarperCollins, which makes it kind of difficult to believe in. Something about it just doesn’t feel quite right.

Or maybe I’m just a nasty old cynic. Since September, over 2,000 novels have been uploaded and over 100,000 visitors have voted on them. Not bad. Most writers only ever dream of getting that many readers. And, as Graeme Neill reports in the Bookseller, three Authonomy writers have signed book deals with the company. Those stats are actually pretty good, better than most people’s chances of getting a deal through an agent. Maybe democracy in publishing can work, after all.