Pack Announced As New Publisher At Authonomy

Pack new authonomy.com publisher The Bookseller

According to The Bookseller this morning, Scott Pack of The Friday Project is to become the new publisher of HarperCollins‘ community writing site, Authonomy. Pack will retain his role at The Friday Project but will be joined at Authonomy by Rachel Faulker, a HarperCollins gradute trainee, who will take up the role of Digital Project Editor. The new appointments appear on the surface to be an effort by HC to step up the published output from the Authonomy writing community. With Pack’s background in digital publishing, I wonder if this move will see Authonomy focus more on e-publishing rather than just being a talent-spotting feeder to HC’s imprints. Authonomy has been successful in connecting authors and delivering some excellent writing workshops.

Since its foundation in 2008, Authonomy has led to just six published titles, and in the past, here on The Independent Publishing Magazine, I’ve been critical of its facilitation of advertising and promotion of CreateSpace services, and its forums being a ripe breathing ground for unscrupolous subsidity and vanity publishers.

Scott Pack told The Bookseller this morning:

“Authonomy.com is already a wonderful writing community and, having spoken

at some recent workshops, I know that there are lots of great manuscripts doing

the rounds on the site. Some of these have gone on to be published but I think

there is an opportunity to bring even more of these to market and that is just

what we’ll be doing in the coming months.”

Future plans for Authonomy include increasing its publishing output from submitted manuscripts and a ‘pitch-writing’ competition aimed at connecting ‘budding’ writers with establised authors.