Our Story

One September day, the idea for a new novel struck me. It pestered me like a toothache or like a melody that you can't get out of your head. The difference was that I enjoyed that it pestered me. (What was wrong with me?)

National Novel Writing Month was only weeks away so I signed up. I waited anxiously, outlining my plot and developing my characters. The very second the clock struck 12:00:01 a.m. on November 1, I pounded the first words into my laptop. From then on, I wrote every day except Sundays, when I tried to give my poor brain a rest.

Like everyone else, I had to squeeze writing in among the unwelcome but necessary chores of the of the day, things like working and eating. Occasionally, Fortune favored me with some uninterrupted moments. There was a railroad engineers' strike, for example, as I traveled between the cities of Turku and Imatra in Finland. I wrote 3,604 words sitting on a hard wooden bench in a crowded terminal in Helsinki, waiting for the strike to get over. It ended in a few hours so, I wrote another 2,127 words sitting in a soft reclining train seat as we raced along the tracks at 131 kilometers per hour. Another day, I wrote 1,888 words while my wife went shopping and I sat in the car waiting for her. There was also a day when I wrote 4,179 words at a lakeside cottage while it rained bucketsful outside my door. I ultimately compiled 107,309 official words to complete the story a few days before the November 30 deadline. I'm sure you know how such a moment of private triumph feels.

The next seven months saw me delete superfluous sentences and paragraphs while adding others that I hoped would help readers connect the dots among the book's scenes. Between times, I replaced boring verbs like "is" with action verbs like "screamed" and allowed one heroine to use the stiletto heel of her shoe instead of a mundane stick to overwhelm a villain.

It was then that a problem showed up.

No one wanted to read my book! Or, at least, no one whom I was willing to let read it.

My wife never reads anything but non-fiction and I didn't want to impose on her. My children were willing to read but I doubted their objectivity. A friend, who has published many well-received books, told me sincerely that she wanted to be a first reader. All I could think was, "What if she reads it and thinks it's horrible? Will it ruin our friendship?"

You probably understand now why I decided to create ReadersForAuthors.com. I desperately wanted someone to read my novel! But I also wanted someone objective so I could trust his or her reviews and someone who wouldn't know who I was so no friendships would be wasted in the process. (Okay, and so I wouldn't be embarrassed if it was awful.).

I ran the idea for an anonymous first reader web site past a few other authors who faced the same problem. They asked questions, critiqued the idea and admitted that they might find the site useful themselves.

So, here it is. I hope you will help improve it by suggesting enhancements. Maybe you or someone else will read my manuscript and I'll know whether my idea for a novel was worthwhile. (If you happen to read a chapter where a stiletto heel plays an important part it will blow away my anonymity. But I'm not too worried. Who ever reads a web site's About link anyway? (Aside from you and me, of course.)

More importantly, I hope someone will read your manuscript and that you'll be happy with what you learn.

Signed: Stan W. Merrill
Hopeful writer