Jonathon Foster, screenwriter, playwright and author tries his hand at a new kind of writing media, the saturated hurdy-gurdy that is the world of internet blogging. His story begins with a book, “The Autobiography of a Narcissist”, which is his first novel. When his attempts at finding an agent and publisher for this work failed, he decided to take the brave leap into “vanity-publishing”, which is perhaps poignant considering the title of his novel.
Despite the negative connotations, self publishing is becoming an increasingly viable and surprisingly affordable means with which an author can produce his or her work. The blog begins towards the end of the writing of the novel, and is released online for purchase shortly thereafter. He tells about about the journey, the rejections and the marketing and the pros and cons of the decision he makes along the way. In March, be blogged about print-on-demand which I found really very interesting. Its obvious (not not at first) that the blog began primarily as a marketing tool for the novel, but at some point took on a much greater meaning. This is most evident as the author writes about his father’s death.
The template is standard blogger, but simple and not confronting. The color scheme is pleasant the the layout more than adequete, although I’d love to rip that blogger header out of the CSS, but thats just one of my pet hates. The author is an author, not a web designer and the good thing about “real” authors and blogs is that they can actually write. I enjoyed reading the blog and I was so enamored with Fosters post about print-on-demand publishing that it prompted a 3-week hiatus from my regular reviews as I dived headfirst into my own witting. for this reason alone I am awarding Foster extra points, his blog actually made me do something. Sure there could be a bias here.. I’m a writer, he’s a writer… but hey, blogging is just a contemporary term for writing. Well done and good luck with book Jonathon.