We love sharing cool sites for authors and aspiring writers and this one may help you find that agent or editor connection you’ve been yearning for.
Publisher’s Desk is an online tool for authors, agents and publishers. Authors register, fill out a profile and upload content, from essays to full length book manuscripts, and agents (2,300+) and publishers (13,900+) are then able to search for content. According to Publisher’s Desk they’ve already facilitated over 1,800 published works, with dozens of connections made daily between authors and publishing professionals.
We tested the site and it’s easy to register, fill out a profile and upload your original work. This site comes with a fee ($49.99 for six months or $59.99 for a full year’s subscription) but you CAN register without paying and enjoy free exposure, too. That’s because once a month the site promotes what they call “Desk Day.” During the 24 hour desk day promotions, all your registered works will be offered to agents and/or publishers. So, even if you have not yet subscribed, it’s worth it to register and leave your works online to be seen by the hundreds of agents and publishers who can login and view all available work.
This is a clever and innovative way to connect authors and publishers without scads of emails and slush piles. And it’s easier for agents and publishers because they can enter search terms for the sort of work they’re seeking, whether genre or subject keywords. They can read an author’s resume, their book synopsis, download the book and connect directly with the author if they like what they see!
Learn more from their video below and let us know what you think of the site!
I have my non-fiction manucsript ready for any agent courageous enough to have a look at and peruse. The ones I have been in touch with are disappointingly negative. Either it’s not suitable for them”at this time, ” or it’s not a “complete fit” for them and give some other excuse. I have collected good wishes from several of them. Hope someone’s good wishes would work.
Like Jacquie and Debbie, I am a bit skeptical. Agents and editors seem to connect more and more with authors they meet at conferences or via referrals. No harm in checking out the site though.
I guess my question would be…do agents really have time to go looking? They seem to be inundated with submissions; response times for submissions can run into weeks and weeks. But then again, maybe there is an email notification thing for them that sends an alert for genre specific works that they’ve registered to see? Perhaps the quality of the submissions they are getting isn’t up to par? Hmmm… thinking out loud. Think I’ll check it out. Maybe the answers are on their webpage.
There is an alert, yes. And the video is really cute 🙂 Will have to ask some agents if they’ve used it…
Has anyone here actually used it and got any feedback? Also, how safe is our manuscripts when once sent off into cyberspace?
BloodygoodRead.com tried to do this, but publishers didn’t wish to participate. Hope your site does better. The general concept really makes sense.
Looks like this one’s been around since 2007 and that there are a lot of publishers/agents who’ve registered (it’s free for them, after all). What we can’t know of course is whether those folks are coming in to search for material – but doesn’t seem like a bad idea to get a profile and sample work up there for free… would be great if someone did make a connection!
This is a really great site! Thanks so much for all the help & tips you share with us!
Why, thank you! Write on… Shari
Great tip. Thanks, Shari.