Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Authonomy - has Harper Collins thrown in the towel?

Last night Authonomy went down - when it came back up the ads read "Autonomy Sponsored by Create Space." The site is also extremely ssss---llll---ooo---www!!!!

CreateSpace is Amazon.com's Print on Demand company - read 'self-publish' and 'vanity publishing' the 'lowest of the low' as far as publishing goes.

Aha! I think I smell a dead rat.

What has happened? Has the great Harper Collins (UK) finally given up on getting anything publishable on the Editor's Desk?

I wonder.

I venture to guess that Harper Collins has already cherry picked what they want. They troll the site - taking what they can use and leaving the rest -- for CreateSpace to pick up?

At least the critiques on Createspace are genuine - not the "loved it, shelved it" stuff that most people give on Authonomy.

Okay, I've played cynic long enough on this. It is true, there are gems and horse-turds on any writer's site. Personal opinion isn't enough to tell me what's good or bad.

Standing, as I am, on the cusp of publication - waiting to see what my fate will be. I've been concerned many times that "Lunch" was too slow building to sell. I still am for that matter. Though this re-write has been exciting, it's not a contract. I have wondered if Createspace or the like, will be my only option.

Too many people on Authonomy aren't willing to edit -rewrite or take any kind of suggestions for improvement. For them Createspace will only showcase their weaknesses.

Time will tell if Harper Collins has given up on Authonomy, or if this is just their next phase.

6 comments:

Keef said...

I suspect there could be something in what you say. There were actually two issues on 'CreateSpace' day - firstly the site was painfully slow (as it used to be about six months ago when it got really popular - the slowness was fixed by the administrator tweaking the server configuration), secondly the URL was changed to redirect.authonomy.com.

Both of these things lead me to believe that Authonomy is now living on a server belonging to Amazon.

K. A. Jordan said...

Last months critiques are late, which tells me something right there.

Stay tuned, I guess, we'll find out later.

K. A. Jordan said...

I think the "Angry Robot" short story competition has pretty much answered my question.

take a look:

http://blog.authonomy.com/2009/08/angry-robot-short-story-competition-on.html

authonomy said...

Ms Kitty & Keefieboy

We can assure you HarperCollins most definitely has not 'thrown in the towel', although the creativity displayed in all the current conspiracy theories makes for amusing reading, befitting a writing community.

You are correct though that authonomy has moved servers, and now resides on sparkly new kit in a new datacentre. authonomy was the first site to be migrated (the cruel fate of the alphabetically ordered?) and we're having a few teething troubles with the platform.

Rest assured, we'll get it sorted, but we have to be methodical.

At least it is not the end of the month!

K. A. Jordan said...

OH MY!

Just when you think nobody is reading a blog - Poof! I get a comment from the "Source."

I'm proven wrong again.

Good.

K. A. Jordan said...

Hey, Keefieboy - The site is down again. Guess they are having serious server problems again.

Poor guys - it's night in England, so they have to be working night-shift overtime during America's primetime.

OHHH - nightmares! Crashing servers, debugging code, slimy pizza and burnt coffee.

PS - Thanks for the comment guys! You have renewed my faith in Authonomy.com 's tech support.

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