The aim of YouWriteOn.com is to help all new writers develop and to help talented writers get noticed and published. We are funded by Arts Council England  YouWriteOn is free to join and open to writers of all nationalities.

Free Arts Council funded professional critiques from editors for leading publishers and agents  Each month, the top five writers on YouWriteOn receive free critiques from editors for leading literary agents and publishers, including Curtis Brown, Orion and Bloomsbury, who represent writers such as J.K. Rowling, Ian Rankin and Elmore Leonard. 

YouWriteOn Book of the Year Awards   One of our finalists for 2007 has achieved a two book deal with a major publisher after achieving a free YouWriteOn professional critique from a Senior Editor at Orion books – View Details. A number of our other first Book of the Year Award Winners for 2007 are now represented by leading literary agents, including Curtis Brown. View BBC News Site Story 

Top literary agencies consider YouWriteOn authors Highly rated chapters on YouWriteOn are considered by top affiliated literary agencies each month. The agencies include The Christopher Little Literary Agency, whose authors include J.K Rowling;  Curtis Brown, whose authors include Margaret Atwood, Ed McBain and David Lodge; The William Morris Agency, who represent many of The Times/The Sunday Times best-selling authors, as well as winners and nominees of such esteemed awards as the Man Booker Prize; Bonomi Associates, who represent authors such as David Gibbins, Simon Kernick, Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan; and the Annette Green Authors' Agency who represent bestselling and leading writers such as Meg Cabot and Ian Marchant.

How YouWriteOn Works

The YouWriteOn.com premise is simple: you review and rate another members opening fiction chapters and then your chapters are sent to another member to review and rate in turn. Each month, the five highest rated new writers from our Top Ten enter our Best Seller Chart and receive a free critique from one of our literary professionals, who also include established authors, and editors for leading literary agencies and publishers, including Curtis Brown, Orion and Bloomsbury . 

The best writers from the YouWriteOn Best Sellers Chart, as decided upon by our literary professionals, will be awarded our annual Book of The Year Publishing Award. The competition is open all year round.

Publish Your Book 

All our authors can choose to publish their books through YouWriteOn. Readers who like your opening chapters on the site can order your completed book as a paperback, and you can choose for this to be from booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, W.H. Smith and Waterstones and most US and UK book stores – earning you royalties for each copy sold. Sales made on Amazon will feature on Amazon’s own bookchart. The site's review system actively gains readers for your writing. Click here to view our Publishing Section.

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Our Literary Professionals


GILLIAN STERN 

Gillian Stern works as a Literary Editor, following many years as a Commissioning Editor. She works as an Editor at leading publisher Bloomsbury, working with Alexandra Pringle, Editor-in-Chief at Bloomsbury. She also works with all the Literary Agents at leading literary agency Curtis Brown, whose bestselling authors include Margaret Atwood, Ed McBain, David Lodge and Sue Townsend. Gillian reads novels across the genres. She reads novels that the agents have signed or are thinking of signing (Curtis Brown director Jonny Geller, for example, is well known for work with new authors) and provides constructive edits, and her opinion on how a novel works/does not work and how it could move forward. She works on novels that are definitely going to be published, and which may also be the author's second or third novel. Gillian provides detailed opinions, and is well known for her constructive approach, and ability to help authors move forward with their work.

She also works with Luigi Bonomi and Associates; A M Heath and The Literary Consultancy, as well as directly with authors who know of her work and approach her directly for a constructive edit. She has worked on many well-known and very successful contemporary novels. 


SARA O'KEEFFE 

Sara O’ Keeffe is a Senior Editor working for leading publisher Orion. Orion publish some of the world's best selling authors, including Ian Rankin, Michael Palin, and Elmore Leonard. Sara works with many best selling authors and specialises in editing crime fiction, women’s fiction, action-adventure and historical fiction. Sara previously worked for a large bookseller as a crime fiction buyer. She has sat as a judge on the CWA (Crime Writers Association) debut dagger panel and has been an active member of the RNA (Romantic Novelist’s Association) for years. 

MELISSA WEATHERILL

     Melissa Weatherill worked for literary superagent Ed Victor before becoming an editor at Simon & Schuster where she worked for five years on women's fiction, literary fiction, crime and thriller. She commissioned, edited and published authors such as Jules Hardy, Annabel Dilke and Kate O'Riordan, and worked closely with many others including Adriana Trigiani, Will Rhode, Victoria Glendinning, Jennifer Weiner and Kathy Lette. She is now an independent editor and reviewer for books and film, freelance editing fiction and non-fiction for publishing house including Macmillan, Orion, Hodder and Grove Atlantic. Melissa also assesses books and screenplays for film companies such as BBC films.


MICHAEL LEGAT

After a highly successful career in publishing, mostly as Editorial Director firstly of Corgi Books and later of Cassell, Michael Legat became a full-time writer and tutor of Creative Writing. He has published five novels and eighteen non-fiction books, the latter including the Best Sellers An Author's Guide to Publishing and Writing for Pleasure and Profit. 

Website: http://www.bookends.clara.net/


PHIL WHITAKER

Phil Whitaker's Eclipse of the Sun won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and a Betty Trask Award, and was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award. Triangulation won the Encore Award for best second novel. His third novel, The Face, is currently being developed for film. Phil is an occasional tutor in novel writing for the Arvon Foundation; previous appointments include external assessor for the creative writing MA at UEA and judge for 2003 Betty Trask Awards. He is co-founder of the manuscript appraisal service Literary Intelligence. His fourth novel, Freak of Nature, is published on 8th February 2007. Click here to read opening chapters. View Phil's website - www.philwhitaker.co.uk 


MARTYN BEDFORD

Martyn Bedford has published five novels: the critically acclaimed Acts of Revision, which won the Yorkshire Post Best First Work Award; Exit, Orange and Red; The Houdini Girl, which is currently being developed for film; and Black Cat. Martyn is a former lecturer in creative writing at Manchester University and an occasional tutor in novel writing for the Arvon Foundation. Martyn has been a judge for the Betty Trask Awards, and is co-founder of the manuscript appraisal service Literary Intelligence. His fifth novel, The Island of Lost Souls, will be published in paperback by Bloomsbury in July 2007.


JOANNA DEVEREUX 

Joanna Devereux is an authors’ agent for a medium-sized, long established London based literary agency that handles all types of general trade adult and children’s fiction and non-fiction books. She previously worked as an editor and publisher for a number of large trade publishers, specializing in children’s books.