I am working on an on-line Writer's site~Any Ideas/Suggestions to make it great?

Do you have a plan to attract agents or publishers? I'd be interested in participating when its up and running. How do you plan to showcase the writers work? In a forum sort of thing or an individual webpage for each person? Will the other members comments be shown or will it be emailed to the author? Will there be a cost involved?

Real Life story can be very interesting. Biography of famous persons is also great. Real life drama can be very be very revealing. Trilogy is also very popular today. Fantasy, future - time machine - are fiction.

You want to be a writer and you say you don't have any ideas? Nonsense! You and all other beginning writers, along with most people who don't want to be writers, get ideas all the time. The problem is that you worry that your ideas are not good enough or original enough. Don't. How about this as a writing idea: a group of people are tormented by a monster. They kill him. Then the monster's mom gets mad. That idea falls into the 'not good enough' category, right? You'd be embarrassed to tell that idea to your non-writing friends. But that's the idea behind 'Beowulf', one of the great works of literature. But your idea has to be original, right? Not really. Thousands of romance novels have the same plot of boy-meets-girl. Thousands of crime novels have the same plot of sleuth-solves-murder. Yet these books are all very different because each one was written by an individual, unique person. Hey, wait a minute- you are an individual, unique person, aren't you? That means that even if you start out with a not-very-original idea, you will write an original story. You can't help it. A beginning writer needs experience. Experience reading lots of books, articles and stories. Experience writing lots of stuff- even if it's not so good at first. Write enough, and the ideas you have will be better and better ones. STILL don't have any ideas for what to write right now, today? Try the Beowulf plot and make it your one. Take one monster- killer robot, vampire, werewolf, or ordinary mean person. Have your monster attack a group of people so that they must kill the monster in self defense. Then, bring the monster's mom, dad, creator, son, lover, best friend, lawyer, pastor, mayor or cleaning lady into the picture. Ready? Start writing!

You’ve got a good idea, there, ShadyGrove. I think the best idea would be to avoid the failings of other writing sites: 1. To attract publishers, you need a distribution list newsletter to keep them up to date on what you’re publishing. Some publishers, as you’ve obviously noticed, are utterly useless, and you can narrow it down to those you know are doing business. 2. To attract writers, they need to know that they keep their rights on your site. 3. Writers need to be easy to find, and links to their material easy to manage for them and you. Avatar links and headings are always noticeable. 4. More isn’t better, when people are looking for things. Keep things compartmentalized so they can browse in peace, and equally importantly not get distracted when searching, and go off on tangents. 5. Any fees/commissions/charges on your part must be up front, in big font, unavoidable, so nobody can say they weren’t told. 6. Set a standard, and make it clear that you’re after good quality material, so people don’t inundate you with time wasting garbage. Some sites are much too nice for their own good. 7. Establish a market presence (sorry, I’m also a copywriter) among publishers and agents. The agents will thank you for a possible source of income, and the publishers get a running commentary on what’s being put on the net. (Some of these people don’t seem to realize the internet exists, yet, or they’re scared of it. It might take a while, but eventually you’ll get non-Neanderthals paying attention.) 8. Doing your own publishing isn’t that difficult; It’s getting it noticed that creates the heartburn. Online blogs and mainstream internet columns will at least read any news you can put their way. Even if they don’t use it, they know you exist, and you can be present in their consciousness when they hit topics like writing and publishing. 9. In theory, you can act as an agent for the people you pick up on your site. That, however, has to be done effectively. I was on a site which was an agent as well, and they never quite managed to get anything off the ground. Strictly for those with the expertise, but not impossible down the track. Or you could maybe pick up an agent from somewhere, and they could take that part of it on, as part of their own business. 10. No writers will be complaining about an online presence if they know the site’s getting plugged, and is serious about promoting their work. I’ve seen some truly lazy, unimaginative sites which would get as little interest from casual browsers as they seem to have had from their designers. **** Important: Writer Beware http://www.sfwa.org/beware/ contains a lot of info on people in the publishing industry who just aren’t worth doing business with (or making use of any other verbs upon) on any level. Use this site to remain informed about who to avoid at all costs.***** Consider this my donation to keeping your idea vermin-free from day one.

It sounds like a good idea, but it's very hard work to develop a site, even if you have all the knowhow. Then, you have to publicize it so that it will attract people. Finally, you're going to be in competition with sites like that which have been around for a while and doing that kind of thing.

My suggestion is to make it all about the writing. The more passionate the web site and its members are the better writing pieces you will receive. A great product is what you need, to make the b uisness prosper. So I would say passion for writing is essential. Also, for those who truely love writing, making heaps of cash is not necessary, but better enjoy a pleasant enviroment.

I would need more information. Would this be a subscription site? Is there going to be traffic geared towards it? Is there going to be an emphasis on getting publishers to look at site. What do I have as far as protection for my writings? Is it going to be a free site? Members only? just wondering. The idea doesn't sound bad, good luck!

I think maybe having a critique group would be nice. Also, information on how to get published would be good. Moreso, maybe a list of publishers would help your site out tremendously. A nice reading group online would add to that as well, because it's good to help one another in making your work the best it can be. And maybe other people will take notice, especially pubslishers and would make it easier on you to get your work out there. I hope that helps.

I already run a simular idea shadygrove. It can certainly work. although setting up a network with publishing companys is a hard thing to do when your idea revolve around a website believe me. Most don't take sites seriously, although i have none people to be spotted by communities. Remember to keep your project orginal as this will give you credit and allow you to bring home help for your project. Do you have all this sorted? like your design + hosting etc ~Joey Mine www.poetryartonline.com

Very intersting idea. Most poeple will only want to submit work if they can make money. I have a story published on an online fiction site and we recieve a portion of the subscrition fees each month. Trouble is, when you divide a portion among all of the writers,we have yet to see a payout because the earnings are so small. What I like is that I can pull my story from the site at any time and market it elsewhere. So for now it's cool just to go online and see my story.

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