Writers' Peer Review Sites – worth the toss?

Most wannabe writers will have dipped their quills into a writer’s peer review site at some stage. It is a baptism of fire, a test of mettle we know we have to endure on the path to publishing glory. But why do we do it? What is it we believe such sites will do for us, or help us achieve? And when it all comes down to it are these sites worth the many midnight candles spent pouring your hopes and longings into them? The answer, of course, is yes and no.

I have direct experience of participating in four peer review sites, YouWriteOn, Authonomy, ReviewFuse and the Bookshed. There are many others but the operating principles remain uniform. It is only the quality and philosophy of sites and its people that change. The secret is to find a good one. It is only good sites that bring value to a writer.

So what I learned about peer review sites? I share some observations.

Few diamonds

For every 100 members on a public site there will be 15 who can actually write. And probably no more than 20 who will provide feedback that has anything insightful, helpful or interesting to say. Discovering these diamonds is often a monotonous, long-game lottery during which much that is unedifying and depressing about these sites has to be endured. The writers who think they can write but can’t. The ones only interested in fawning validation. The self-promoters. The arbiters of true taste and the self-appointed site morality guardians. The trolls. The score and league table obsessives. The knitting circles. The seemingly endless trawl of hobgoblin and sub-genre magic Potterlands that have to be travelled. The nerdish colon kings and the prudish kitten queens. Most sites will have them all. But the discovery of the few diamonds are worth the effort. Because the diamonds become trusted and much valued sounding boards, mentors and advisers. They write stuff that is enjoyable to read. They can even become cyber writer friends. A diamond is worth an army of trolls.

It’s you, dummy

No site can make you a writer but they may help you be a better writer if you allow. On most sites the contributors will divide into those just seeking validation and praise and those who know they are not the finished article and are looking genuinely to improve. Avoid the former for there is nothing you can usefully contribute and embrace the latter because they are worthy of the effort. I have found that the real value of these sites lies in the reviewing of others rather than being reviewed. Sure, there is great value in having a good reviewer make useful suggestions and insightful criticisms of your own work and these will be readily absorbed, but there is even greater value in doing thoughtful, honest and reasoned reviews of others’ work because by doing so you begin to understand and appreciate the flaws in your own work much more acutely, and this improves your own writing. And it is only you who can do this because writing is not a committee process. It’s just you.

Thank you

When the next infantile review of your work arrives or your considered and reasoned review is met with spitting umbrage the only response is to say “Thank you” to the first and nothing to the second. Get into a thicker skin, not a spitting match.

Message Boards

Avoid them at all times except for the first exploratory site visit. Message boards are where all the site’s gremlins, gangsters and gripers infest and brood. Most make a Corleone blood feud seem like a kiddies’ party. Stay away. Say your thank yous if you dare but step no further and never, ever, venture to suggest that they may wish to get a life, because in doing so you will lose yours. Or at least the will to live it.

Be truthful, be honest

It is the only way. How does your writing improve or how do you help others if you do not give your views and opinions honestly? Telling someone that their writing is good when you don’t think it is gives no benefit to anyone. Such telling will always require a detailed reasoning for the opinion and any writer worth their salt and ready for the open market shark attacks will value and welcome such telling. It isn’t personal. It holds equally true when you praise a writer’s work. It is always pleasant to get such a response but the reasoning for its appreciation and why it works is even more valuable.

Passing through

Peer review sites are for passing through, not for nesting in. Like schools you can travel from primary (eg ReviewFuse) to secondary (YouWriteOn) to uni (Bookshed) and if you’re very unlucky you might get to visit a borstal or two along the way (Authonomy). If you’re not graduating through then you are not developing and growing as a writer. The poorer writers hibernate in a site, the better ones will all fly away off and up.

Had their day?
A few years ago peer review sites were very much viewed by aspiring authors as a viable route to possible publishing contracts and were enthusiastically embraced by many. The reality is that very few authors were ever taken up and the growth of e-publishing and decline of sector economies means that many of the sites became more cyber slush pile and bicker fests than diamond fields. The numbers attending have fallen dramatically. But this does not mean that the sites’ value for the honing and development of writing has gone. It is still there, but in weaker numbers. The fewer diamonds harder to find. I suspect the public peer site in its present form is in inevitable decline. But the market will grow alternative ways to aid the aspiring writer.



So are peer sites worth the toss?

I very much doubt I would be where I am in my writing life without the influence of the peer sites I participated in, particularly YouWriteOn and the Bookshed. As with all things you get out what you put in but you need to manage your expectations on the tightest of reins. For me it was never about league tables and points scored or involving myself in a cyber love-ins or troll-fights, it was just about improving my writing skills and voice and learning the craft. When I look back at my early submissions to sites and compare them to later ones and to now, I can see and feel the remarkable change and improvement in my writing. I no longer actively participate in peer sites but my desire to become a better writer continues. One of the many lessons learned on the sites is that no writing is perfect. Perhaps that lesson is worth the participation costs alone.

by Jasper Dorgan

A Year in the Life... more perspectives

Last week, five independent authors shared their experiences of getting published. Today, two more writers join the debate. Triskele Books author Jasper Dorgan and ALLiA member Dan Holloway tell us what they've learned since they took the leap into independent publishing.

JASPER DORGAN

An author’s lot is a lonely one. The writing can’t be done by anyone else but you. Some human contact of kindred spirits, who are not always necessarily kindred, can be found in the best peer review sites but they are still distant and for the most and inevitable part of the roller coaster processes of writing a book you are on your own.  But of course it’s not a book yet, it’s only a manuscript. That’s what I had a year ago. 90,000 painstakingly crafted words on paper, or rather hidden away in the cyber caves. I didn’t have a book.
I would not be published without the help given by my fellow Triskele authors and friends. In the last year I have learned from them about script editing and typesetting and cover design and ISBN licensing and POD and e-booking and most of all I have learned that  it takes a person to write a book but it takes a team to make it. A real, live book. My book. There are scant few thrills to compare to it. Apart from writng the next.

www.jasperdorgan.com

DAN HOLLOWAY

I made the decision to write “seriously”, in the sense that I thought it’d be cool for someone other than me to read what I wrote, in 2007. By 2008 I had decided that I was going to self-publish because no self-respecting (or shareholder-respecting) publisher was going to go near my weird and quirky bits of literary fiction. By January 2009 I had started a collective of like-minded individuals and we had an absolute ball, pushing each other to new levels of weirdness and quirk, exploring form and the boundaries of media and genre with absolutely no one to be answerable to. The self-publishing community seemed to be full of creative anarchists and refuseniks and I loved it. Then along came Kindle and very quickly that changed. Self-publishing was flooded with entrepreneurs, people who wanted to make more bucks by by-passing those in the middle. The media got interested in self-publishing – because it was financially making waves. For those of us who’d set out in 2008/9 it felt like our skateboard park had been bulldozed to make room for yuppie winebars. And then in the last 12 months, things changed again. Quickly. More and more small presses seemed to be popping up doing exciting, uncommercial, experimental things, the kind of things we’d loved doing when we set out. I feel almost like I’ve come full circle, and am seriously considering submitting my work for the first time in years. Self-publishing is no longer the creative frontier – it hasn’t been fro two or more years. But now we have such a frontier again – with small presses.

Dan Holloway (http://danholloway.wordpress.com) runs the small imprint 79 rat press (http://79ratpress.blogspot.com) whose first 6 titles are coming out in June of this year.

A Year in the Life of an Indie Author ...

By Gillian Hamer

When Triskele Books celebrates its first official birthday in June, I shall take a moment or two (probably over a glass of fizzy stuff) to consider the rollercoaster journey I’ve been on since the inception of this mad idea over posh tea and equally posh cakes in a scarily posh hotel in Park Lane, London two Christmases ago.

Since then, everyone involved with Triskele has come one hell of a long way, and experienced the delight, or the imminent delight, of getting their books published. The feel of holding your novel in your hand for the first time is something that probably never leaves you. It makes up for all the traumas of … ISBNS, formatting, editing, paper colour, web design and marketing … combined.

There have been numerous highs – and yes, a few lows. But independent publishing has been a rewarding and worthwhile experience for me and I do not regret one single moment.

I thought it may make interesting reading to find out if other authors agree. And discover what we have actually learned over those first critical twelve months, starting with Triskele members … but also opening up the question to members of ALLiA (the Alliance of Independent Authors) and getting their thoughts also.

The first batch are below, more to follow …

------------------------------

JJ MARSH (TRISKELE)

Quality. Good writing will find its audience. Marketing sleight-of-hand works, to a point. But no matter how slick your promotion is, people can tell the difference between snake oil and story. Good books find good readers who tell other readers ...

Flexibility. 'Published' previously meant set-in-stone, unalterable, liable to date, and every mistake an eternal albatross. Not so now. E-books can be updated, corrected and tweaked to reflect the Zeitgeist.

The author is in control.

www.jjmarsh.wordpress.com

LIZA PERRAT (TRISKELE)

Last year at this time I knew nothing about indie publishing, a big fat zero. I came onboard the SS Triskele rather later in the journey than Jill and Gilly; only three months before our launch. So, I had to learn everything in a tearing hurry. The result was a vague idea about all aspects of self-publishing, but a lot of confusion remained.

A year on, I have had more time to learn about it. I'm still far from an expert, but I have learned SO much about all the aspects of the process in one short year, and feel far more confident than I did a year ago.
www.lizaperrat.com

JANE DIXON-SMITH (TRISKELE)

I know how important it is to work together as a team.

www.jdsmith-design.com

ALLiA Members :

CATHERINE BROPHY

It’s not as easy as it looks …BUT… After a zillion publishers said “We love your writing but…” I was thinking of taking up knitting - socks perhaps, for Antarctic explorers. But we’re short of Antarctic explorers in Ireland. Then I read about AlliA, joined up, went to a meeting and Wheeeee, I can publish myself. Suddenly I had a huge surge of creative energy.
The learning curve is incredibly steep. I’ve spent hours trying to figure out Internetty things. At times I felt like curling up in a virtual corner and weeping… Still do. BUT… Next time will be a lot faster.

It is easy to get overwhelmed … BUT… After one of my internet meltdowns I remembered my father’s advice. “The way the monkey fought the bees on the Naas road…one by one” I focused on the next step and ignored everything else. Now most of those bees are back in the hive.
When you know for sure that you’re going to be published a wealth of ideas leap into your head.
When you know for sure that you’re going to be published you discover that you can write a lot faster than you thought you could.
Would I do it again? Absolutely.

http://www.catherinebrophy.ie

JOANNE PHILLIPS

That it's both surprisingly easy and incredibly hard, and that this constant contradiction is something you just have to get used to! I'm not sure how useful that is to someone starting out, though; it's kind of like a mum telling her teenage daughter there are plenty more fish in the sea - there are some things you just have to find out for yourself. 

What I know now is that there is no excuse for not diving right in - and I wonder why any decent author would bother hanging around waiting to be 'discovered' by an agent or publisher when there is a whole world of readers out there just waiting for you. 

But - and it's a big but - the work is overwhelmingly multi-faceted. You become everything all at once: writer, editor, marketer, promotions manager, cover designer, blurb writer, distribution manager, IT professional, webmaster, PR consultant, project manager - plus you have to actually get on and write the next book. 

Many indie authors have jobs, and families, and lives (!) as well. I wouldn't change a thing about the last twelve months, but I do wish there were a few more hours in the day. The biggest contradiction of all: Indie publishing puts out some of the most amazing reads around, but still we have to fight to be taken seriously.

www.joannephillips.co.uk