TAMPA, Fla. — A startup company in the Bay area is helping bridge the gap between aspiring authors and potential publishing deals.

What You Need To Know

  • Ready Chapter 1 is a startup company that uses critiques and feedback to help writers looking to get published

  • The work posted on their site that receives enough positive feedback could get the attention of publishers that partner with the site

  • Aspiring authors essentially provide critiques and rank pieces on a one to five scale that lets the creators of the site know if there’s something that’s worth passing along to publishers

The business is called Ready Chapter 1, which uses critiques and feedback from other writers on its website to determine which story should get a publisher’s attention.

Even as a kid, you’d probably find Fred Koehler clacking the keys of his laptop, creating worlds from his imagination and life experience.

“There’s nothing really cooler than that,” he said.

Koehler loves writing so much that he says he was one of the youngest reporters for his hometown newspaper in Sebring.

“I started out at age 16, going out to take pictures of the dogs that were available for adoption at the SPCA,” he recalled. “Saw my name in print, and my ego never deflated.”

Because, to him, and fellow writer and partner Sarah McGuire, there’s something so special about writing.

“My first book was published in 2015,” McGuire said. “I have published another book since then. I just loved the whole writing process.”

Even though both are published authors and have had success writing things like children’s books, they say the process for writers to get their work in front of publishers and have the work actually be read is not easy.

“Think about your favorite talent show on TV and the lines wrapped around the building,” Koehler said. “That's what it's like to try and break into the publishing industry. So, you've got tens of thousands of writers and so few golden tickets.”

Part of the reason, according to Koehler and McGuire, is that publishers are inundated with manuscripts.

So, these two writers decided to combine their literary talents with algorithms and crowdsourcing.

“We actually build bridges into publishing opportunities for those writers,” Koehler said.

They created Ready Chapter 1, a website where authors submit portions of their work to be reviewed by other writers on the site.

Those aspiring authors essentially provide critiques and feedback and rank pieces on a one to five scale that lets Koehler and McGuire know if there’s something that’s worth passing along to publishers.

“They create all of this data,” Koehler said, “and we just analyze it.”

It’s gotten the attention of publishers, like Bushel and Peck Books out of California, because they’re able to see the data compiled on Ready Chapter 1 and find writings that have already seen success on this roughly two thousand user platform.

“To be able to provide an opportunity to get a book published, but also to have helpful feedback in that whole process, that's huge,” McGuire said. “So, we are getting the cream that rises to the top, but we're helping the people who want to rise to the top. We're giving them the tools they need to do that.”

Community feedback is what helped these two authors grow to become the writers they are today.

By creating this platform, they hope to expand opportunities for folks who are creating new worlds of their own.

In the middle of May, Ready Chapter 1 plans on holding a six-week contest where one of the top-rated works from the site will get an automatic contract to publish from Bushel and Peck's.

Right now, it’s free to use the basic forums on the site to get more people to sign up and provide more data that will ultimately be more appealing for publishers to utilize to find better manuscripts.