I ran an exciting, fascinating passion project nearly 20 years ago. Now, I'm going again.
In 2005, as a PhD student, I started building The Frontlist, which used peer-reviews to spot and promote promising new writing. It was an alternative to the slushpile and it used the collective wisdom of writers to promote promising material to literary agents and publishers.
When it launched in 2006 it got fantastic press and great signups and, eventually, a powerful copycat (HarperCollins' Authonomy). Both projects had successes; but I knew the game was up the minute HarperCollins stepped into the ring.
Authonomy enjoyed huge signups, but there was still so much yet to learn about gamifying, toxicity and trolling; all challenges that were not reflected in the structures implemented by Authonomy or The Frontlist.
Twenty years on and what has changed? New channels have opened up to writers seeking an audience; BookTok, Wattpad, Reedsy, Self-publishing. There is an existential threat from AI (specifically, Large Language Models); if not capable of creating decent fiction, more than able to increase the deluge of unsolicited manuscripts into overflowing, unmanageable inboxes.
Yet the pathway to traditional publication (submit to a literary agent for representation to publishers) has changed very little. Many writers still aspire to the gold-standard: publication, in print, on shelves in bookstores. Literary agents remain essential to discovering, nurturing and promoting original, surprising and unlikely voices. Theirs is a human process - reliant on passion and experience and innate hunches that as yet, cannot be replaced or even approximated by algorithms. But how we get new material in front of agents is long overdue a rethink. Unsolicited manuscripts clogging agents' inboxes, waiting months for a response is just no good for anyone.
"Unsolicited manuscripts clogging agents' inboxes, waiting months for a response is just no good for anyone."
— The Frontlist
The Frontlist's goal, therefore, remains the same as it was in 2005: to improve the route between great writers and great literary agents. For writers, we want to add transparency (sunlight) and speed (grease). For agents we want to provide efficiency by only serving material that deserves serious consideration.
It has taken 20 years, but The Fronlist's time has come; we know so much more about how to harness the collective wisdom of crowds and we know how to build great sites and experiences. Sleeves rolled up, here we go…time to drag the slush pile into the Internet age.