On my trip home from Portland yesterday I was browsing Southwest’s in-flight magazine when I came across a piece about a website called Page99Test.com.
The basic premise is that writers spend forever, in and out of workshops, brushing up the first 20 pages of their manuscript, but without reading further, an editor/publisher doesn’t know if the the whole of the book is any good. So an industry practice has evolved wherein the reader flips to page 99 and starts reading there to see if the work is engaging.
This site takes the practice to masses. You have to make an account to participate, but once you do, you’re presented with a page of a manuscript. The work may or may not be published, and the author’s name is confidential. You rate the page, saying whether or not you’d be likely to buy the book based on the 99th page. You can even give the author a note as to why or why not. It’s oddly addictive.
The really fun part is that you can upload your own 99th page, which of course has me looking closer at my own work. My 99th page finds my main character reflecting on the life of her grandfather, the only person in the world who was ever good to her. The story opens a year after his death, but this is the first close look we get at his life. It’s not quite ready for critique just yet, but I think once I’m done with this draft I will definitely post it to this website, just to see what people think.
Because there’s nothing like anonymous feedback from strangers, right? Has anyone out there taken this challenge? What did you find/learn?
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