Hello. There’ll be a review by Adele Geras along tomorrow, but for
the moment, having now read the whole book, here are a few more thoughts on the
Sparks anthology I mentioned when opening Awfully Big Reviews for 2013.
The Sparks anthology was created from a selection of posts from the
Authors Electric blog, so is, appropriately, an e-book. Now there have been
many books created from personal blogs and journalist’s blogs before. Nicola
Morgan’s helpful “Want To Be Published?” is just one example. I am sure there are some by bread-bakers,
avid knitters and railway enthusiasts as well as others by people who just lead
what could be called Interesting Lives. The Sparks anthology is one example of
this phenomenon.
What I most enjoyed about the Sparks anthology was the
diversity, which made it ideal for a page-or-two-before-sleep reading or a
quick moment during a sandwich. Sparks is not a single voice following through
the incidents of a life but a collection of post contributed during the time
Authors Electric, a co-operative blog, has been running. The pieces come from
writers who work mainly for adult or Y/A/teen readers, so this is not a
children’s book.
Excuse me – I still struggle to find indexes and headings on
my kindle – but each of the chapters, headed by the famous Blott cartoons,
offer a selection of opinions, experiences, histories and reflections on the
future of publishing and obviously, the posts come from committed e-book
enthusiasts.
Collected together, so one doesn’t have to click or search
through the AE blog, the pieces have a fresh, lively and sometimes
confrontational quality. The posts – or should they now be called articles? –
cover a variety of topics. A well-argued post in support of Amazon. A rightly
angry post on cyber-bullying. A post that declares the e-book arena should be
home to experimental and un-edited writing but having seen some un-edited
writing, I am not sure I agree with this opinion. The tale of a new e-published
historical series. An urgent call for e-book writers to be generous and review
other e-books. And many more. The anthology is not an amateur thing, though it
was clearly made with love and enthusiasm. Sparks was written by many acclaimed
and award-winning authors who have opted for publishing o/p titles
electronically, with or without help, as an alternative to publishing silence.
The Sparks anthology is not perfect but it should certainly
be celebrated as a bold brave and interesting publication model – and a lot of
work on several people’s part.
I did wish there could have been more posts, more ideas
raised in the pages, but maybe that would have involved the whole issue of
selection rather than a post per person – or maybe the posts don’t arrive
daily? In addition, some posts still carry the marketing angle of their
blog-post origins, but there is a honesty about this, and the final section –
the biographies – did have plenty of information about the contributors.
All the same, reading through the variety of experience and
wealth of publishing histories, I did wonder once again quite what publishers do want just now and why
such writers - just search out the names - are having a hard time. Sparks is a grand and honourable
experiment and offers a valuable glimpse of one future of publishing worth
exploring.
Recently, I have been using my kindle rather than idly buying
magazines – though other magazines are available – and feel that 99p or so was a small sum
well spent downloading a very interesting idea. Well done, Authors Electric.
Hmmm. There’s definitely a lot of work involved. Not sure if
it would be worth doing this for Awfully Big Blog Adventure, although it is an
idea . . .
Penny Dolan
Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE
8 comments:
Hi Penny - big thanks for mentioning my book but do you mind if I correct the title? It's Write to be Published... :)
Hi Penny - Sue Price of the Authors Electric blog here. Thanks for the generous review! I know the rest of the team will be appreciative.
The Authors Electric Collective are a team of 29 writers, who each post a blog a month at the Do Authors Dream of Electric Books? blog. The one or two days at the end of each month are kept for guest bloggers.
Our subject is writing, publishing e-books, writing, and, er writing. We can be followed on Twitter @AuthorsElectric, and found on Facebook. We also have a website, where you can find details of all our e-books.
Oh, and I should say that producing the Anthology WAS a huge amount of work, and thanks should go to Julia Jones, editor; Stephanie Zia, publisher; Pauline Fisk and Kathleen Jones, proof-readers - and to my brother, Adam Price, for providing the Blott cartoons.
Thank you, Sue & Nicola, for filling in the information and correcting my mistakes as well as putting some names and titles into the gaps.
My excuse is that I wanted to get the post up in the gap before the next review arrives!
Hello Penny,
Really pleased to read this thoughtful review, though not so sure about the bit about publishing silence. My feeling is that Authors Electric, more than anything, reflects an enthusiasm to seize new opportunities. Some authors may be in it because of a downturn in their fortunes in the traditional publishing marketplace, but others are here simply because this is the chance to try something new [I'd place myself in this category] and yet a good number of others because the e-book future is something they feel passionately is here and they want to be a part of it. I hope Sparks reflects all these views.
This was a good suggestion that you put up here...dude…..hope that it benefits all the ones who land up here.
Electrical Wholesalers Australia
Your review on these books is greatly appreciated. More reviews please! :)
Hi, I don’t understand how to praise of your site. It’s truly amazing! Health Insurance Palm Bay
Post a Comment