Ascribe is a site that has been developed to provide readers with an introduction to the best independent novels.
To this end, they ensure that only books that have been vetted or supported in some way by industry professionals are promoted on the site. As they say in their introduction: "You can guarantee that every novel here has been recommended by somebody in the book trade."
What this means in practice is that before writers can upload their books to the site, they must have some kind of testament to the book's quality from a traditionally-published author, an agent, a literary consultant or a professional editor earning their living at least in part from the fiction trade. Note that so far, the site only promotes novels.
As a reader, you can search for books by author name or category, and if you want to get more involved there's a blog and a newsletter, together with sections highlighting current news and forthcoming events. The site design is clean and easy to navigate and is without any intrusive advertising or links to other sites.
Most book-promotion sites rely on Amazon review ratings as their barrier to entry - Ascribe is trying to raise the quality of their offerings by using the standards of the traditional publishing industry as their kitemark of excellence. The argument is that many books fail to find a publisher for reasons other than that they're simply 'not good enough': publishers' lists in certain genres can be oversubscribed; agents are overworked; the current market isn't interested in your kind of book ... and so on. Ascribe is taking the view that good books should be allowed to find their audiences, and this site will surely help both readers and writers achieve that end.
The home page for Ascribe is here.
To this end, they ensure that only books that have been vetted or supported in some way by industry professionals are promoted on the site. As they say in their introduction: "You can guarantee that every novel here has been recommended by somebody in the book trade."
What this means in practice is that before writers can upload their books to the site, they must have some kind of testament to the book's quality from a traditionally-published author, an agent, a literary consultant or a professional editor earning their living at least in part from the fiction trade. Note that so far, the site only promotes novels.
As a reader, you can search for books by author name or category, and if you want to get more involved there's a blog and a newsletter, together with sections highlighting current news and forthcoming events. The site design is clean and easy to navigate and is without any intrusive advertising or links to other sites.
Most book-promotion sites rely on Amazon review ratings as their barrier to entry - Ascribe is trying to raise the quality of their offerings by using the standards of the traditional publishing industry as their kitemark of excellence. The argument is that many books fail to find a publisher for reasons other than that they're simply 'not good enough': publishers' lists in certain genres can be oversubscribed; agents are overworked; the current market isn't interested in your kind of book ... and so on. Ascribe is taking the view that good books should be allowed to find their audiences, and this site will surely help both readers and writers achieve that end.
The home page for Ascribe is here.