Re: Newsletter
Posted by:
Jon (---.proxy.aol.com)
Date: February 01, 2003 06:28PM
<HTML>Well, haven't you been a busy little bunch of beavers while I was groaning on a bed of pain? Um ... actually, the op wasn't that bad, pain quotient minimal, in fact. Everybody at the hospital was very helpful and efficient and cheerful, even the poor nurse who got spattered with blood when I sneezed at the wrong moment. I realise that in most countries that standard of healthcare would cost a fortune .... we're very lucky still .... memo to all politicians and bureaucrats ..... don't @!#$ it up. I am now confined to quarters for a fortnight to guard against infection, and have read two of my specially purchased books already. I may have to write something to keep boredom at bay. (And no, I can't hear properly yet. Damn).
Anyway, to get on topic for a minute (gasps from audience) I think a Fforde Newsletter is a good idea, although we may have to stray off the subject a bit in order to fill it (well, we'd probably do that even we didn't have any space left ....). Up to present there hasn't been anybody on this fforum I have thought 'yuk, I don't wanna know you' about, and yet two minutes trawling through alt.fan.pratchett will turn up hundreds of arses of all shapes and kinds. (And rec.arts.books.tolkien is practically nutter grand central). So I think the embarassment factor would be quite low. A newsletter would also, I feel, be a more appropriate place for some of our longer stories and things; IIRC Carla, e.g., said that since she looked at the fforum at work she didn't have time to read through the longer posts, and this may well be true for others. Something you could download/print off/save offline might be more use in such cases. It would also be a <I>much</I> more appopriate place for plot speculation (e.g the recent theory of book jumping thread) since we must remember that this fforum isn't actually ours; it's on Mr. Ff's own website, and we should not wish to embarrass him by pre-empting his plots. I'm sure none of us would ever accuse him of having lifted ideas from the fforum (and be nothing but flattered if he did) but some fool is sure to put their foot in it one day.
OK. Practicalities. I propose that the newsletter thingy be posted up as a website (a la Discword Monthly), but also available by (free) e-mail subscription. (As is Discworld Monthly ... look, it's very successful, let's just lift the whole concept ...) This will give us the maximum possible 'circulation' . I can host the website, since those nice AOL peeps give me 14 meg free webspace, and I'm only using 2 meg of it, but there would be a severe limit on the number of 'back-numbers' I could carry. If anyone has more space available, volunteer now!
We also need;
1) a name (Ffordean Times? The Next Post? The Thursday Gazette? ideas please)
2) an editor .... or a team of editors ... but someone will have to put the final copy together. I'll do it if nobody else has a burning yen for journalism, but I'd rather not do it alone.
3) Some ideas for content; news, obviously, re signings, pub. dates, dates in pubs, microcons etc. How about telling people when films JfF has worked on are being shown on TV? Stories from ffans (whether Nextian or not ... but obviously all vetted for approval by the editing team ... we don't want any visits from men with very thin watches) letters re Nextian sightings and happenings, if you like JFf's books check out this, etc, etc. No pictures; they take up too much file space. More ideas needed.
4) Enough people reading it to make it worthwhile ... so all you lurkers out there, signify your interest (or not).
As to a Ffan club .... hmmm. I mean, would it be a proper club, with membership cards and little badges and subscription fees? They're a bugger to organise, those, and even worse when your potential membership is spread across the globe. I'd vote for a more informal association, i.e., anyone who subscribed to the newsletter would be in (and perhaps would get some extras not available to the Publick? Such as what?). I do not know if JFf/his agent/his publisher have any plans for an official club.
Tell me what you think. This will only happen of we want it to.</HTML>