Is 2009 Year Zero for the Publishing Industry?
Have you heard about the groundbreaking Writers’ Collective, Year Zero?
I joined an international venture to take on the publishing industry. Year Zero Writers is a group of 20 authors from as far afield as Hong Kong, the USA, France, Dubai, Greece, and Finland who have joined forces to bring their unique brand of contemporary fiction direct to readers.
The group, each of whom is committed to publishing their own work and selling it directly to readers, started up as a response to and protest against a publishing industry dominated by market trends that squeezed out original, edgy fiction.
Year Zero Writers ( http://yearzerowriters.wordpress.com/ ) espouses a simple manifesto, based around the principle that literature is a living conversation between readers and writers. The group’s first project, started in March 2009, was a novel, The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, written in real time as a dialogue with readers, and given away for free on the social networking site, Facebook.
I'm a founder member of the collective, and what we’re doing is about giving readers the words we write, and letting them decide for themselves. Quality is essential – whether it’s cover design or avoiding sloppy formatting. We are doing this because we care about readers, we care that what they read is in no way diluted or made to an arbitrary model.
Thirteen of the Year Zero Writers - myself included - have provided samples of our work (http://annelykengarner.blogspot.com/) for the collection 'Brief Objects of Beauty and Despair,' which the collective is giving away as a free pdf (available from the website) to showcase its work. This is only one of a set of marketing strategies that embrace new media such as the microbloggnig site Twitter, where the group’s writers already have a devoted following of over 1000.
The first novels by members of the collective will be released on September 1st and will be available from Amazon. The first titles will be Benny Platonov by Hong Kong resident Oli Johns, which tells of an exile from the former East Germany who believes he can save Hong Kong’s homeless with his stories…if only he didn’t have block; Glimpses of a Floating World by Larry Harrison, the poetic story of police corruption and the underbelly of London in the year heroin first hit the capital’s streets; and Songs From the Other Side of the Wall by Dan Holloway, the heartbreaking story of a teenage girl growing up in post-communist Hungary who dreams of following her mother to “The West.”
It’s time writers started thinking less parochially and traditionally, and more like the musicians who happily give their songs away to their fans, or the artists prepared to rally round a common ideal. It’s time writers came out of their attics and embraced their readers. That’s the movement we want to start.”
My book, Sunday's Child will be released in the Autumn of this year.
I joined an international venture to take on the publishing industry. Year Zero Writers is a group of 20 authors from as far afield as Hong Kong, the USA, France, Dubai, Greece, and Finland who have joined forces to bring their unique brand of contemporary fiction direct to readers.
The group, each of whom is committed to publishing their own work and selling it directly to readers, started up as a response to and protest against a publishing industry dominated by market trends that squeezed out original, edgy fiction.
Year Zero Writers ( http://yearzerowriters.wordpress.com/ ) espouses a simple manifesto, based around the principle that literature is a living conversation between readers and writers. The group’s first project, started in March 2009, was a novel, The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, written in real time as a dialogue with readers, and given away for free on the social networking site, Facebook.
I'm a founder member of the collective, and what we’re doing is about giving readers the words we write, and letting them decide for themselves. Quality is essential – whether it’s cover design or avoiding sloppy formatting. We are doing this because we care about readers, we care that what they read is in no way diluted or made to an arbitrary model.
Thirteen of the Year Zero Writers - myself included - have provided samples of our work (http://annelykengarner.blogspot.com/) for the collection 'Brief Objects of Beauty and Despair,' which the collective is giving away as a free pdf (available from the website) to showcase its work. This is only one of a set of marketing strategies that embrace new media such as the microbloggnig site Twitter, where the group’s writers already have a devoted following of over 1000.
The first novels by members of the collective will be released on September 1st and will be available from Amazon. The first titles will be Benny Platonov by Hong Kong resident Oli Johns, which tells of an exile from the former East Germany who believes he can save Hong Kong’s homeless with his stories…if only he didn’t have block; Glimpses of a Floating World by Larry Harrison, the poetic story of police corruption and the underbelly of London in the year heroin first hit the capital’s streets; and Songs From the Other Side of the Wall by Dan Holloway, the heartbreaking story of a teenage girl growing up in post-communist Hungary who dreams of following her mother to “The West.”
It’s time writers started thinking less parochially and traditionally, and more like the musicians who happily give their songs away to their fans, or the artists prepared to rally round a common ideal. It’s time writers came out of their attics and embraced their readers. That’s the movement we want to start.”
My book, Sunday's Child will be released in the Autumn of this year.
Tags: child, collective, sunday's, writers, writing, year, zero
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1 Comment
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Comment by Bettie Youngs on August 4, 2009 at 10:57am - The idea of women sharing their experiences now with "new and real" time behind them is so very exciting! I've authored 36 books, and now publishing memoirs for other women who wish to tell their stories... magnificent, and incredible journeys. bettie
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