An iIllustrated History
Sorry George, it was the 'Geo' signature that threw me. Perhaps you have been
calling yourself that for a while, and I did not pick it up.
My 'subject to an agreed brief' is an advertising loophole of sorts that
allows me to back out when the going gets too tough.
I have produced magazines, but not books, although the designers I work with
have done so.
Once a template is agreed to, flowing text and images is not as hard as it
sounds. For a very, very beautiful book, an enormous amount of pickiness is
needed, and this adds time and money. Especially if you get supplied
inferior photos and the like. No one would want to take that on as an unpaid
job, unless of course you knew the book would be printed beautifully
(expensively).
Which is why we need to establish just 'how big' this book might be, and why
I made reference to an encyclopedia like Professor Bury's.
I don't entirely agree with you on the idea of contributions. We have some
very able writers among us. Some are pedants, others polemists. Thor is an
engineer by training, Claude an historian. There is no reason an essay on
the BMW legacy can't sit side by side with a discussion on how to pull apart
an engine. Moreover, a contribution by Mr Crook might end up the most
valuable part of the book, but might not fit with one that had been
intended, say, to be a manual on restoration. I suppose it's a question of
when to stop.
I hope the 'poisoned chalice' comment was in jest, I certainly meant no more
than to point out how easy it seems to be in the Bristol world to get
people's backs up. You know I have nothing but reverence for our esteemed
BEEF founder.
In short, there is no way, in my opinion, that this suggested book would not
be big and painful to produce. That in no way should deter us from
considering or attempting it.
But as my escape exit 'subject to an agreed brief' suggests, I can see that
a badly scoped book could take years to finish and destroy a lot of online
friendships.
The funniest, and most unintended, product of the internet world is of
course a complete disregard for loyalty. You can commit to something online,
and then completely, utterly, snark-like, vanish away. It might be something
worth factoring in when we attempt to write a book with online authors.
Peter
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