Website of the Week - Scribd

I was waiting on a table this week (Glamorous, I know.) and one of our regulars, knowing my disposition to writing, told me about this little gem called Scribd. I find out on the about page that "Scribd is the largest social publishing company in the world." How have I not found this sooner? The website operates like Flickr, the photo-sharing site, but with words--and so many words in different genres have found themselves opening up to an online community through this organization. Not only is Scribd breaking publishing barriers, but they prompt user interaction and conversation to the hosted written works.

The possibilities are endless: just take a look at the categories through the "Explore" tab. There's a place for Creative Writing, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Business, Magazines, Government Documents...even Children's Books. With an easily accessible interface and straight-forward availability, it could make a writer second guess themselves. So while you're musing about the future of "social publishing" for days on end, give your manuscript (or even just a few poems) a place to rest. It will be among the 10 million documents already published, and as Scribd boasts, many from businesses such as the New York Times, Ford Motor Company, Simon & Schuster, O'Reilly, World Bank, Chicago Tribune, Harvard University Press...the list goes on.

Happy publishing!