More Questions

Alison's blog isn't yet a book - and she's not sure what she wants to do with it now. It's still open...

She went to O'Reilly Emerging Technologies conference - and felt there was a lot of talk about digitising backlist - and that's not what she's wanted to do. By doing it as part of her course the online novel took over her life - but cost "time" not anything else.

Its an interesting point... for a publisher its the finished product that seems to important - not the process. I'm thinking this goes back to Mil Millington a few years ago who wrote a great funny blog that then got turned into a less great, less funny novel but with a plot rather than anything else.

As for Naomi, Perplex City made money through selling trading cards.

Whats interesting about all these stories is the "audience building" that was involved - and how that audience actually had an effect on the story themselves.
Alison had previously researched "women online" and found out that most readers of chick lit were looking for the books, not the web, so it was a very new way of taking that story out there.

Alison felt that because chick lit readers want escapism there was less ways they wanted to interact - in terms of changing the story - far more interested in "socialising" around the story - again, another theme of today, that there's different ways of interaction - and the author is such a key component of that relationship; as is the kind of audience, the type of genre....

Tim has asked the question about at what point the author "reveals" themselves - Alison felt that her readers wanted the story to be real - but because it was part of her course she'd made it clear that it was a story. For Naomi, during the project she was always "hidden" - the expectation of game players isn't that there's an "author" behind the project. The narrative and game design were both equally as important.

All 3 case studies were about creating a community... what lessons are learnt for bringing opportunities to writers to take on projects such as this?

Some writers are very happy to promote themselves on line, like Meet The Author websites, and blogs, says Alison, but others who are less so. She thinks you should nurture those writers who want to do that - and in this case, its maybe identifying something in the work which can interest a community.

Chris Meade feels that all the projects are more "in the real world" of our everyday life than a reading by an author in a theatre.

Alison feels that what you read online needs ot be more byte sized - more "putdownable". We read online in bursts and its less permanent.

Naomi says that Perplex City ended up being one and a half million words in total - a very long novel!

Lots of people have met in the real world - even 3 marriages! - after playing Perplex City. Maybe the literary community is catching up with cult film and tv. Maybe poetry has a lot of similarity to this kind of world - Steven Waling made this point recently on his blog stevenwaling.blogspot.com that maybe poetry is very similar to a cult TV programme.

Alison says that writers should be more relaxed about giving work out to be used/reused/remixed.

Can these techniques help writers become better and more skilled writers?

Naomi says that people love to give advice on line - and when you admit to having a problem it really brings people in to respond.

Also - what happens when the author/reader relationship is reversed/changed. Tim Wright involved some readers of the Teletroscope blog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telectroscope by getting them to go along to an event as his brother Paul - 3 turned up and everyone went along with the subterfuge.