Usually book collaborations involve two or three authors. WEbook offers writers the chance to work with many more collaborators. One part social networking, one part self-publishing and one part American Idol, the company aims to help writers who haven't found much success with traditional publishing and to foster a writing community.

Here's the basic idea: You post your writing and invite others to contribute to your book idea. You get feedback from readers, make any changes as the project leader, and when you think your work is ready for publication, you submit it for consideration. Then the public votes for the next book WEbook will publish. That book's authors receive a publication contract from WEbook and a share of the royalties.

You can decide to what degree you want to participate in this process. You can be the sole author of a work, and you can invite only people that you know to view and critique your writing if that's your preference. But if you ultimately want WEbook to publish your book, you'll have to find a way to get a lot of people excited about your book.

WEbook published its first book earlier this year, a thriller called Pandora by 17 authors, and the company has more books scheduled for publication. If you want to vote for the next project WEbook will publish, you can start reading submissions now. The actual voting period begins Tuesday, Nov. 4.

Finally, I should mention that participation is free, you retain the rights to the work that you post (except if you accept a publication contract), and you can remove your work at any time.

--Sarah C. Lange, associate editor

What do you think about WEbook? Would you contribute? Let us know by posting your comments here in our forum.