The Book Project - Discuss, Anticipate, Collaborate here

[KittyHawk]

That's great, berdache1. We'll need all the help we can get!

[berdache1]

At your sevice. Also in my professonal life I do a great deal of writing, pulling together information in chronological order-that sort of thing. Therefore I could do some of the grunt work for pulling this project together. I am looking forward to working with you all. This group has been incredible. I've printed out some writings that I have found on this marvelous forum and I'm glad that we might (fingers crossed) do something worth while with the work that has been done.

Anyway, I'll stand by and wait for my assignment

[TexRob]

TexRob, I like your outline. There is an additional piece I think we should consider including:  Resources - resources such as this forum, of course, and then national and possibly regional support organizations.  I've been struck by how many people posting on the forum state that they feel very isolated and have no support network of their own. I would like to think we could help provide some suggestions for sources of support. I first felt this was especially necessary for those in remote or rural areas, but it seems many big city posters have a similar need.

What do you think?

Hi KittyHawk --  I think it would be good.  This item would fit in well around V or VI of the outline. 

[KittyHawk]

TexRob, I like your outline. There is an additional piece I think we should consider including:  Resources - resources such as this forum, of course, and then national and possibly regional support organizations.  I've been struck by how many people posting on the forum state that they feel very isolated and have no support network of their own. I would like to think we could help provide some suggestions for sources of support. I first felt this was especially necessary for those in remote or rural areas, but it seems many big city posters have a similar need.

What do you think?

Hi KittyHawk --  I think it would be good.  This item would fit in well around V or VI of the outline. 

I'm glad you think so, too. I think that's an important servicce we could provide.

[TexRob]

I agree that the self-selection idea is a great one.

Hi brokebackbeauty --

By now you and KittyHawk know that Pete will be doing a thread on personal stories to be written especially for the book.

I bet we'd get more than enough material using that method and it relieves hours and hours of work for editors searching for stories and perhaps wasting time if they don't manage to secure permissions.

Even with the scope of the book pared down to personal experiences, I think we will have a huge amount of source material to work with.  I suspect the problem will really be finding what to cut, not what to add.  It appears we have more volunteers at this point to help the editing process.

[Self-selection] might prove too narrow on its own tho as a methodology.  I worry about the posters who moved us deeply long ago but didn't become regular visitors.  There may be some detective work necessary to try to get their attention again and seek permissions.

Any thoughts on this challenge?

Having people write their personal stories as part of the book runs some risks.  Everyone posting stories will want theirs to appear.  If the thread gets too big, that would mean selecting some and leaving others out.  That's bound to upset some people. 

If the book ended up being exclusively stories written this way, its character would no longer resemble the character of the forum.  The element of spontaneity would be gone.   Personal stories written by solicitation would prove hard to edit, ending up whole in the book for the most part.  That would hamper the flexibility of the layout and editing process. 

I think the specially-written stories should be added judiciously.  They can augment the themes of the book, but I wouldn't want them to crowd out the many passionate forum posts which were written in the heat of the moment, and which animate the forum.  The tone of the personal stories and essays will resonate differently from the tone of the forum posts, so care has to be taken to avoid the appearance of something contrived, or ersatz, in the construction of the book.

As an editor, I'd rather work with the original posts.   These can be sliced, diced and edited as needed, giving flow to the book.  In the editing process, only the parts of the post relevant to the theme on that page would be used, for example.  That would permit more forum members' posts to be included. It would also inject greater creativity into the process.  As a result, there would be more control over the final product, and the posts would help fine-tune the sentiment we want to convey.

I think the posters who no longer post, but who wrote compellingly, will give their permission readily.  If they can't be tracked down, I think the forum still has the right to use the material; in many cases, I think, a forum owns the contents.  I don't know about this one, but I can't imagine the adminstrators wouldn't be able to touch those posts.  Getting permissions shouldn't pose too great a  problem because we have e-mails already, so it would be primarily a matter of making contact electronically.

[Brokaholic]

Texrob, I see your point about using original spontaneous posts. I guess we should go with your idea as you have more experience with editing etc. If the idea is to use them sliced up as snit bits to compliment a point then that would work very nicely.

Eight weeks? Wow Pete, talk about driving force

I am so excited..

[peteinportland]

A couple of thoughts:

1. I'm not too sold yet on arranging the essays by group. I like the idea of having 100 or so essays in sort of a random order. Each essay would be its own chapter. I'm not a big fan of trying to label each person's essay. IMO, BBM is about transcending labels.

2. I do think a list of resources is an excellent idea.

3. We might include a foreword on how this project came together. If we have an essay by Dave, IMO, it should be the first essay and not listed as an epi or prologue.

Any thoughts on the above?

The job at hand right now is getting the essays collected. I will start the thread, and we should have an editing team in place to review the essays and select the ones we will use. Then the editing team should divide up the essays and work on editing them. I don't want us to over edit as we want a unique voice for each essay. The process though will be winnowing them down to 100 essays and achieving the right balance. Any thoughts on how this process is best handled? Posting, reviewing, deciding on what to include?

We will also need a volunteer or two to start looking through the "How BBM impacted me" thread and other threads to cull some essays for consideration. We also need some volunteers to visit some other sites where stories are posted and see if there are good essays there.

Who is the team leader on this project? Did you guys already decide (or did someone volunteer)? I'd like to have one point person follow up on volunteer duties and coordinate the volunteer assignments.

Feel free to give feedback on my thoughts.

Thanks so much to all of you!

Pete

[mario]

Let me step in for a minute and give a few thoughts:

1. I think we all envision this first book as a collection of personal essays about how BBM affected the writer of the essay. This would be all sorts of stories from a spectrum of people. The essays would be culled from this site from ones already written to people writing one just for this book. We could also ask for submissions from people who are not yet members. Obviously, no one would ever have their posts here published without permission. Period. Each author would be intimately involved in the editing and shaping of their own essay.

2. I would envision we would use print on demand technology. I have good resources in this area. POD publishing means a book is not published and shipped until it is ordered. People can order it from us, at any bookstore, at amazon.com, anywhere they would order a normal book. Set up fees usually run around $1,000 and the publisher takes care of the shipping and handling. Our team produces a publish-ready book and cover art.

3. I would think this book would sell many copies through our site to our members. We can also explore many options of others who might want to sell the book: websites, GLBT bookstores, gay publications, movie sites, art house bookstores. If there is enough general interest, a major publisher might pick it up. Proceeds from the book would go back into this site for site projects and site maintenance(we have a number in the works of all sorts).

4. in the next couple of days, I will start a call for submissions thread and announcement. I will also help you folks revise your wonderful assignment list and help you agree on some specific tasks for each assignment. My hope is that we can have this book ready to sell within eight weeks. Maybe I am crazy, but POD technology makes it a much easier and faster process.

5. After this book, we might consider a book that looks at the technical aspects of BBM--something more scholarly that deals with theme, symbolism, imagery, character, score, editing, and all of that great stuff. That type of book would sell to our members, libraries, universities, and serious BBM types. But that is down the road. let's see how the process for the first book works.

Thanks for all your thoughts, idea, and efforts. You folks already have so much of this organized!

Brilliant...as always! you've refocused us......My own thoughts & feelings :

1) I don't think I'm  too wrong if I say I feel that the 'overwhelming' majority of us came to this forum desperately seeking solace & insight into the unexpected & unexplainable IMPACT this work of art had on us.

So I say let's start tight & extremely focused on the impact it had on us all, gay, straight, women, men, singles, couples, Americans & myriads of other Human beings across the globe that we have seen coming to this site in waves, as they start seeing the film & seek as well.

2) In this forum there is more than enough material for several books, each with a different emphasis, message & target audience. From a sociological, psychological, film appreciation, script writing,  etc, etc, point of view, this site is a veritable  & invaluable gold mine of truth & insight.

But we did not come together to review a film; we each found his/her own solitary, painful way here seeking emotional insight. This IMHO is what makes ous unique. This kaleidoscope of individuals is truly an amazing and awe-inspiring sight to behold. These things are what we should share with the world.

3) Two main steering committees should be divided between the technical needs & aspects ; and the message, content, editorial aspects of this.

with much respect & love to all of ya

mario

[mario]

Would it make any sense out in the market for us to start by publishing a teaser book that prepared the fan base who will buy our first book for an entire series of books? 

Stories from Brokeback Mountain anyone.....interesting

mario

[desertstarlover]

All of these ideas are great as usual but surely no one is suggesting a book by committee (a la Variety ad) are they? Sorry, don't have time to read all of the thread.

Has any book ever been published that was written by committee?  If not, that would make this be a very unique undertaking, and a dynamite marketing angle.

I have a background in organizational psychology and in business.  This book could be made in the same fashion as any product, through a development cycle, which sometimes has many dependant AND independent variables.  It would only take a small group to identify the variables, after that point the threads for these variables could be created. In other words, break the whole down into smaller tasks, have a thread for a task or group of tasks, and let people migrate to the task(s)/thread(s) that they think they can contribute their best ideas. Moderators would be essential. Threads could be combined or split as the project continues. A timeline would be easy to integrate into the "project". There would need to be one or two project coordinators, without big egos.

[desertstarlover]

I agree that the "stories" in the book shouldn't be overly organized or categorized.  If the selections are made based on quality, the book is a nicer "read" if it meanders a bit.  Too much categorization adds too much predictability as a "read".

Wonderful point!  But even though the stories should not be overly catagorized, it would be very helpful if the project itself   is done in an organized way.

[TexRob]

Who is the team leader on this project? Did you guys already decide (or did someone volunteer)? I'd like to have one point person follow up on volunteer duties and coordinate the volunteer assignments.

Hi Pete --

Right now, brokebackbeauty is penciled in as project coordinator, but this isn't definite.  We've considered having project assistants (KittyHawk, KillersMom, etc.)  act as the contact person  when the team leader isn't online, in order to keep the process going.

1. I'm not too sold yet on arranging the essays by group. I like the idea of having 100 or so essays in sort of a random order. Each essay would be its own chapter. I'm not a big fan of trying to label each person's essay. IMO, BBM is about transcending labels.

The chapters I suggested included a  G.  Viewers' Essays which I thought might follow just the random order you're suggesting, but would come either before or after essays and posts arranged in other chapters by topic.  The book would include both formats. 

My thinking has been that someone opening the book may be especially interested in reading about one topic first, then moving on to other stories.  The "grouping" arrangement would hold that person's interest as he or she reads along.  Other people might want to start on the chapter having essays in random order and read the book straight through.  They, too, would have that option.  But either way, there'd be a choice, depending on the reader's preference.  Readers may be turned off if they feel compelled by the format to search through the book or to read every essay.  I thought the latest chapter outline would make it easiest for both types of readers.

I understand not wanting to label each person's essay.   On the other hand, I think once they've been selected and can be read side-by-side, some of the essays will touch so strongly on a certain theme that it might fit best in a topical chapter.   The editors would have the option of adding it into a general format or a specific one.  Too, the writers might have their own ideas where they'd like their stories to go in the book.  This would give them that option -- a little "ownership" of the project.

I'm not dug in about this exact suggested chapter outline, so I'm flexible on the arrangement.

I will start the thread, and we should have an editing team in place to review the essays and select the ones we will use. Then the editing team should divide up the essays and work on editing them. I don't want us to over edit as we want a unique voice for each essay. The process though will be winnowing them down to 100 essays and achieving the right balance.

When you say "100 essays," do you mean from the new thread (I think it'll generate at least that many) or a combination of stories from the new thread and from previous posts?  We still don't know the pages or dimensions of the book.   One hundred essays might look good in one format, but bad in another.  Those, plus the template and graphics, may mean adding in more or taking out some.

The stories on the new thread will not lend themselves to much editing; the posts from current threads would because posters often talk about several unrelated things.   I think it would help the book to edit those existing posts so as to include as many members' posts as possible, thereby creating a sense of community.  Examples of what I mean by edit would be stripping out links, signatures, salutations,  some quoted material and desultory remarks that wouldn't mean anything to the book's reader. 

In both cases, I think we can preserve the unique voice of each writer or poster.

Any thoughts on how this process is best handled? Posting, reviewing, deciding on what to include?

We will also need a volunteer or two to start looking through the "How BBM impacted me" thread and other threads to cull some essays for consideration.

What we really need is a central place to paste the selected posts, which all the editors could work from.  Having all the raw data in one spot will give the coordinator a clear idea how much source material there is to work with, and about how much additional cutting needs to be done to fit the size of the book.

The project assistants can check other sites, but is this worthwhile?  I think we will have way too much material from the members of this forum alone.  Until we know the pages and dimensions of the book, this isn't an easy question to answer.

The new thread you're starting will have essays that several editors should read, selecting the ones they like out of the thread until enough have been chosen.

The other threads should be looked at with at least two sets of eyes.   I think there are almost enough volunteers to do this.

 

[TexRob]

Texrob, I see your point about using original spontaneous posts. I guess we should go with your idea as you have more experience with editing etc. If the idea is to use them sliced up as snit bits to compliment a point then that would work very nicely.

Eight weeks? Wow Pete, talk about driving force

I am so excited..

Thanks, Brokaholic.  I think once the process gets underway, eight weeks is doable.

[peteinportland]

Let me think a bit more on the organization of the project (as far as completing tasks). We might create a new child board just for this project.

100 essays is just a number I tossed out.

Just so everyone understands, I will be overseeing the project from a large perspective (as well as our other ongoing campaigns). All final editing/project decisions will be made by Dave and the admin team (however, I don't expect them to vary much from what this group decides and presents as a final copy). A team leader(s) will oversee the day to day volunteer follow through and operations.

For now, I think the admin team wants to focus on personal stories gathered in one book as our site's first book project. I think the layout is still open for discussion on this thread. I'm not sure if we will have a final idea for layout until the essays are selected. I could be wrong.

Thanks again to all of you.

Pete

[TexRob]

Hi All --

I'm going to break off for the night, but I wanted to take up a few stray issues.

1.  First, we need to make sure we're all on the same page concerning the message we want this first book to send.  Let's all try to articulate that over the next few posts to make sure we understand it clearly, and let's take the time to revisit the issue carefully.  Doing so will save a lot of wasted effort in the future. 

Would posters here please take a moment to express in their own words what they think the message we're sending is?

2.  We need to consider the publishing cycle itself.  When would be the best time for this book to come out?

3.   I'd like to thank everyone who's volunteering on this project and let them know they're not forgotten!   KittyHawk  had suggested what volunteer categories we should have a while back.  These categories need to be revised so that each person has a clearer idea what to do.  We need to work through this, and hope to add people's names in as the revision occurs.

4.   Since this first book concerns people's private experiences of Brokeback Mountain, the editing process will require a lot of care.  For this reason, plus the volume of material involved and the question of how big the book should be, it may be advisable not to lock ourselves into a particular time frame as yet, unless some supervening issue concerning the publishing cycle sets that timeline for us.  Again, I'd like to say that I think we have a huge volume of source material to work with, and this could slow the process beyond what we're hoping for at the moment.