Today we are launching a new service that allows writing contests, competitions, and festivals to use our technology to filter, sort, route, and display entrants’ submissions to judges or reviewers.  No more copying and mailing writing samples – Creative Byline manages the whole thing.  So, whether your contest judges are all in one place or halfway across the globe, we’ve got you covered.  You can find more about how it works here.

I’m very pleased that our first client for the new service is the 2010 Festival of Faith and Writing (press release).  Writers attending the festival are provided with the option of submitting a manuscript to attending editors, and this year we’ll be managing their process online.  We’ve  worked closely with the Festival to mimic a process that works for them, but we know that we haven’t covered all the varieties of contests and festivals.  Are you responsible for managing a flow of manuscripts or writing samples?  Would an online system to manage the entire process be helpful?  Let us know.

Not all writers write from an outline. But if your novel is done—which is what the editor is really hoping for—then it’s just a matter of summarizing what happens in each chapter.  Even better: In the process of writing the outline, you might spot a few weaknesses in your manuscript that you can then fix before submitting it. There’s information on how to write an outline on our “resources” page, but you must be logged in to access it. (Signing up doesn’t cost anything.)

While there is a market for manuscripts, until now, there hasn’t been a marketplace. There hasn’t been a centralized place–real or electronic–where writers can identify and quickly have their work seen by editors who are looking right then for exactly what they’ve written. That’s unfortunate, because regardless of what’s being bought or sold, marketplaces are more efficient for everyone. They make it easier for buyers and sellers to do business. Marketplaces also give new talent a place to be seen, right alongside established talent.

The market for manuscripts existed; the marketplace did not. So we created it with Creative Byline. We not only bring together buyers and sellers but also, through our proprietary software, we help the seller find the right buyer.

Writers don’t ask for much, really. Most simply want the chance to put their book in front of an editor and have the editor judge the work on its merits. Creative Byline gives writers that chance.

• Publishers say they are able to discard 80 – 85% of unsolicited manuscripts within a few minutes of opening them. Of these, about 75% get rejected because they are poorly written. The remaining 25% are inappropriate to the house (e.g., a house that publishes only novels receives a nonfiction manuscript)—a mistake that, editors say, even agents make sometimes.
• Hoping to streamline the submissions process at their own houses, a few publishers have tried setting up specific e-mail addresses for e-submissions but quickly abandoned the idea when submissions seemed to increase exponentially and overwhelmed the system.
• Publishers may say they are closed to unsolicited manuscripts, but each editor actually determines that for himself. The problem is, under the current system it’s hard to find out which editors are exceptions to the house rule.

It was all pretty interesting and helpful when it came time to build the software that would make the submissions process easier on everyone.

When he heard about the snail-mail submission process, he saw a problem worth solving. In the process of coming up with Creative Byline, he used a lot of what he’d learned at Herman Miller about research, technology, and design.

“What the user needs is paramount, and if we were going to improve the submissions process, we had to figure out what each user—writer, editor, publisher—needed and how to give it to them,” he says. “The thing I’m most excited about is that Creative Byline really does give everyone the thing they told us they want most. Writers get access to editors and a timely response. Editors can control the flow of manuscripts. And publishers get a more cost-effective way of dealing with submissions. I’m pleased with our solution.”

We think everyone else will be, too.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to take the 15-second survey.

That’s right—somebody complained about how outdated the manuscript submission process was. Brad MacLean listened patiently and with great empathy to the rant, at first only because said whiner was his wife.

But the longer he listened, the more interested Brad, a former executive at one of America’s most admired companies and the kind of guy who enjoys a good business challenge, became. Once he understood how frustrating the submission process is for everyone—writers, editors, publishers, and postal workers—he saw a problem worthy of his time. He knew there had to be a better way. Also, he wanted his beloved to stop complaining.

Over the next two years, he brought his 20 years of business experience to bear on solving the problem. He interviewed editors, heads of publishing conglomerates, and writers to validate the problem. He did exhaustive research on the industry. He created spreadsheets, databases, business plans, and other things that sound slightly geeky. The result is Creative Byline, a web-enabled, database-driven tool that brings together people who write books and publishers who buy them. It’s set to go live later this fall.

The five-second pitch? It’s a match.com for writers and editors. And its time has not only come, it’s long overdue.