YouWriteOn's literary professionals, who include editors for leading literary agents and publishers, such as Curtis Brown, Christopher Little, and Orion have commented on the high quality of stories that the YouWriteOn Top Ten Chart System and Best Sellers Chart ratings system has highlighted. Many thanks to site writers for all your great stories and for helping to make this possible.

We are very pleased to be able to help highlight talented writers to the publishing industry. Below are some recent comments from a BookSeller Article which discusses YouWriteOn.com and its chart and ratings system.

"On YouWriteOn, the standard of work is much higher than on the slush pile," Senior Orion Editor Sara O’Keefe says. "A piece of work has been through its paces several times. It may have been seen by an editor and rewritten. It’s an evolutionary process; writing takes commitment and hard work."

Curtis Brown agent Camilla Hornby agrees that this feedback culture is hugely beneficial for would-be authors ... "It’s a great idea for a site ... I love that we’re involved with something that’s about filtering out writing and finding the good stuff."

She continues: "Because of the number of submissions we get, feedback is not something we can provide, unless we really want the book. It’s got to be more useful to writers than a rejection letter. We encourage writers to get as much feedback from as many places as possible; to be able to hear criticism and re-edit .."

Below is an indepth look at how the ratings system works.

The rating system was devised by professional authors Phil Whitaker and Martyn Bedford.

Martyn Bedford is the author of five published novels: 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; Black Cat; and The Island of Lost Souls. His work has been translated into eleven languages. Martyn reviews for the Literary Review, is an occasional tutor in novel writing for the Arvon Foundation, and is a literary consultant to Arts Council funded YouWriteOn. He was a judge for the 2002 Betty Trask Awards, and was lecturer in creative writing at Manchester University 2001-06. Martyn has taken up a six-month residency as teaching fellow in creative writing at the University of Leeds in January 2008. He is currently working on his sixth novel, The Fifth Room.

Phil Whitaker is the author of four published novels: 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 was joint winner of the Encore Award for best second novel. His third novel, The Face, is currently being developed for film, and his fourth novel, Freak of Nature was published in 2007. Phil is a literary consultant to YouWriteOn. Previous appointments include external assessor for the MA in creative writing at UEA, judge for the 2003 Betty Trask Awards, judge for The New Writer Prose and Poetry Awards.

The ratings system is scored on story telling facets and weightings that YouWriteOn's literary professionals consider most important in creating a story, with eight story-telling facets being rated in all. An advanced statistical analysis called Standard Deviation is then applied to all reviews and ratings. Standard Deviation was advised upon by a University Statistical Consultancy as the best way to help ensure the most representative assessment of results and a fair system. Standard Deviation is a more effective way of assessing representative results than averages and helps to negate unrepresentative scores. For writers, is best not to concentrate overly on the stars displays, as it is the Standard Deviation system which is more the key to assessing ratings and which looks more indepth at the range of scoring data. The Rating Results for over 200 books have been checked independently by the Statistical Department of one of the United Kingdom's top Universities.

The results of the chart system has been excellent stories highlighted in our Top Ten and Best Sellers Chart and editors for leading literary agents and publishers such as Orion, Bloomsbury, Curtis Brown and the Christopher Little Agency commenting on the high quality of the stories in the YouWriteOn charts, and becoming involved with YouWriteOn to consider promising and talented new writers. All of the highest rated stories on YouWriteOn progress to the Best Sellers Chart from the Top Ten Chart. See rules on The Top Ten Chart page for more information.

Mike - it's not quite that easy To remain in the top ten, a writer must not only have a spare credit, he/she must attach a credit to their work every seven days. Failure to do this results in being ousted from the top ten. Also, don't forget that the top five every month are removed from the charts and placed in the bestsellers chart, which keeps fluidity going.

As for those below the top ten, to keep the chart position, a credit must be attached to the work every 30 days, otherwise the sample goes to the back of the charts. I think there are very few people here who would keep adding credits to the same work year after year - if it hasn't reached the bestsellers by that time, chances are it needs revision! Also, it is not possible to keep your work in the bottom half of the top ten for more than 25 cumulative days. After that, the sample is placed in the bestseller chart and removed from the general chart through the longevity rule.
So - it's not just a question of amassing credits in your bank - it's more complicated than that
JR

Stop the sketch - it's too silly

Hi

The site does say that a writer can remove an unfavourable review every 8 reviews. I can't find where this can be done? Please help me.

Olga

Hi Olga,

Once your work has gotten its required eight reviews you will see an option in the review section to remove whichever one you please. You should also be receiving an email notification of this option.

Be careful which one you remove. What with standard deviation and written not equaling scores reviews it can be tough to know what is going to do you the most good in the ratings.

Best,
Alan



Best,
Alan

Hi

My dilemma is now that I've done some editing on my three chapters, should I pull the original submittion and post a reworked version (means starting again with reviews) or just put a note that my work has been revised and keep it going with the earlier reviews reflecting the original version?

Olga

I'm currently wrestling with this - it might be useful to be able to see who gave what rating!

I have a question which I hope someone familiar with the scoring system can help me with, namely:

If I write a stunningly original piece on deaf-mute librarians which naturally and conistently scores low marks for dialogue, would the standard deviation adjust the overall mark. Or would I be doomed to suffer in the charts because of my main characters' inabiltiy to use the spoken word.

Of course, this is a purely hypothetical question which in no way reflects the spareness of my own dialogue

From experience a stunningly original piece on deaf-mute librarians will score high enough on all other ratings to merit an entry in the Top Ten, and in the interests of diversity we would welcome such an interesting piece