A sunny spring clean for the authonomy blog, and a first public outing for our startling new logo, up there in the header. Some of you will love it, some of you will hate it - we think it's quite fun...
The blog's new and impressively yellow rebrand heralds the imminent arrival of authonomy's private beta launch. While we've still a little way to go on the full development (there's plenty of bells and whistles to be added), a site like authonomy is really nothing without its community. And on that basis, we'll soon be delighted to invite the first few hundred names on our email list to set up residence, behind closed doors, in the very first incarnation of the site.
Many thanks to all of you for your interest, and for your patience. If you're not yet on our list it's not too late to whack in your email address over on the holding page at authonomy.com - check back soon, or subscribe to our feed, and we'll keep you up to date...
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Welcoming the woodcut...
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23 comments:
Thank The Lord! Thought it had withered on the vine. Can't wait to get under way.
Excellent - looking forward to it... don't know if I was one of the first few hundred to sign up though... presumably we (they) will get an e-mail.
Just to poke the bee hive a little - what will authonomy have over www.youwriteon.com?
Would love to know more... and be added to the email list! If there's anything I can do to help let me know! Looking forward to it
Movement at last!
Nice logo.
Polonius:
What are you reading, Hamlet?
Hamlet:
Logos, logos, logos.
If it has taken this long to get a logo... Since authonomy was announced, I have started playing the piano, lost a client, gained two more, my lover bought a new puppy who is now four months old (yes, for Christmas). Twiglet will bark at lions on the TV, but the mrs blackbird outside the french windows is something else. With my new piano skills, I have renamed him Twigoletto.
You see, Life is definitely more interesting than fiction. And as fiction goes, authonomy is a bit dull and ponderous. Can you imagine a novel that took 8 months to get past the prologue?
By the way, the logo is sepia, not yellow, and not quite web 2.0 either. But web 2.0 is just a passing fashion, so lets hold our fire but not our breath.
And as I came to it late, I have little doubt that I will not be in the privileged few for beta testing. I was involved in Beta testing for Microsoft Access as, in the words of a particular softie, I am one of the few people in the world who really understand Access. But the authonomy doors will close in my face.
... and if they don't, it will imply that not many people have signed up.
Regards
Andrew
Ooops, I meant Rumpelstiltskin... or was it ZeBeDee?
Hoorah, Authonomy is nearly here - at least for a given value of 'nearly'.
I signed up after it was announced on the radio. I don't know if this makes me early or late - I'll have to wait and see.
I have things ready to be read, so whenever you're ready, guys ...
Liking the logo, by the way.
This is heartening news.
I like the woodcut. Worth every second of time and ounce of effort put into it, that's what I say.
Will be awaiting the next episode with great anticipation. And a water bottle. This waiting is thirsty work.
Plumboz
I will put my night cap on and go to bed with a hot water bottle. I have got cold waiting.
Zebedee,
Coming from Arizona, hot water bottle didn't come to mind for me at all. Just keeping hydrated whilst I wait for this soiree to kick into gear.
Best,
Alan
Hello, Arizona.
Arizona may be ready to rock, but darkest North Yorkshire thinks that Spring is a bad idea and has gone back to bed with a nice book, a cupa_t and a hottie.
I think Authonomy is a good idea but even I deliver websites to my clients quicker than this. If there really was funding to do it, it would be done.
Having grown up on the Pampas, without telephones or television, I guess I can wait for authonomy, but bring on the blue skies before I go crazy.
Exciting.
I like the new blog look (but I liked the old one too...)
Lexi
so the creaking wooden door opens and a paper dry voice from within intones "yeeeeees?"
"sorry to bother you, we're here to see authonomy. Is it in?"
"I shall enquire if the master is receiving guests at the moment, please wait without for a moment."
the door locks shut with a thud as leaden and hollow as a grave and footsteps are heard retreating into the bowels of webdom whilst we that are left without are left to ponder, "without what...?"
bet i get to be the first few hundred and one. harumph!
Oh what excellent news and what a cool woodcut logo - well done guys. Looking forward to seeing the all singing and all dancing site.
Liz
No bad thing for the thousands of us prospective authors out there, who are currently caught in the catch 22 situation of submitting unsolicited manuscripts to publishers.
Seems we're damned if we do, damned if we don't.
Send in the script you've been labouring on for the last year, following the stringent guidelines set down by agents and publishers and it'll probably end up languishing on a slush pile.
If you're lucky it'll be plucked out by a publisher's assistant.
Alternatively, if you can't face the thought of rejection don't bother sending it at all, leaving it to gather dust in your own desk draw.
It seems more of a lottery than ever to get a book deal these days, but at least sites like Authonomy and You Write On.com allow your book to achieve its aim and reach an audience.
As for that elusive publishing deal.. like countless others, I'll be posting my work online and keeping my fingers firmly crossed.
I registered the day after the announcement on Open Book, which would probably put me in the first few hundred. BUT, my internet provider has changed my email address since then, is there any way I can keep my place as an early subscriber?
anonymouse (and everyone else):
If you are not chosen for the testing of authonomy.com, and you are sick of waiting for it to happen, you can start using www.youwriteon.com today. The site is funded by the Arts Council, so is reputable.
I have just uploaded the first two chapters of the book I am writing. You can find it at:
http://www.youwriteon.com/books/bookdetail.aspx?bookguid=43313072-2ab7-4481-9395-22145bb934d2
Copy the above address into your browser address bar.
Or else search for Adios, Aurora by ZeBeDee.
The synopsis is as follows:
Adios, Aurora
Synopsis
In 1982, an infamous mercenary surrenders to British peacekeepers in equatorial Africa. He says he is Jack Walton, whose family vanished in 1970. The peacekeepers refuse to believe a word of it. It is impossible, they say, no one could survive the ordeal he tells them.
Oops, forgot to add:
You have to look for the link that says "Read Sample Chapters", otherwise you may just get a summary.
Regards
ZeBeDee
Am having trouble uploading files to Authonomy. Have tried .rtf and Word 95 but get told they aren't valid files.. When I send a message to Authonomy via the Contact us link I get redirected to a a page of html:
!DOCTYPE html (View Source for full doctype...)
html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
- head>
title>Contact Us/title
Help!
visink@hotmail.com
that should have been visink@hotmail.co.uk
Any ideas what's going wrong with the uploads?
In reply to ZeBeDee:
I'm already with YouWriteOn, and my main story is here: http://youwriteon.com/books/bookdetail.aspx?bookguid=ca728962-6bb7-47d4-b8cc-e00c754ce427
However, I find the font hard to read, and so have to copy and paste into Word, then alter the font before I can really get down to reading and rating the stories. Hope Authonomy will be a little easier on the eye!
I'm halfway through reading your chapters, will do a review ASAP.
vsink (anonymous),
I had a real time loading up my ms also. What finally worked was taking my entire file, which originally was an odt.file (Open Office), turning it into a wps. file and then into a doc.file.
Good luck!
Alan
Very interesting, maybe this is a trend we will see more often with other publishers? Maybe they will mix it up and put out some more innovative websites.
Got to hand it to you, if I look across the board HC's is certainly on the ball with internet related trends and market opportunities.
Good luck.
Zebedee said,
"If you are not chosen for the testing of authonomy.com, and you are sick of waiting for it to happen, you can start using www.youwriteon.com today. The site is funded by the Arts Council, so is reputable."
As I understand it, YouWriteOn has only received one small grant from the Arts Council, a few years ago. So you can't use that as a reason to decide whether or not it's "reputable". And, as YWO is now working in partnership with a notorious vanity press, it's to be avoided as far as I'm concerned. By all means make the choice to go POD, but don't pay those vanity presses a single penny. It's not a valid publishing credit, and it will do neither you nor your work any favours at all.
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