Digital resources can be used as an aid in the production of professional looking documents. Tools such as adobe PageMaker provide desktop publishing methods that are comparable to those used by professional publishers, facilities such as typesetting and guidance to page layout can be used by non-professionals to create such documents. They could publish magazines, newspapers; even books can be set and printed from within the home. Distribution of such material is another question.

The Internet can be used to help promote the work of unknown artists and writers. Hoffman et al. (2004) state that in 2003 the Internet had 126 million users. Should a proportion of these users discover an article or document designed by an unknown artist and even be slightly moved by the document, then it is possible for unknown writers to reach thousands of individuals without professional interference.

Writing does not have to be in the form of a book or a journalistic article. Digital resources and the Internet facilitate the use of other technologies, but a fundamental tool is the innovative use of web design techniques. The distribution of a hyperlink is also much easier than the distribution of a physical document. Unknown artists can gain support from using web-forums related to writing. Competitions are run online such as the BBC’s last laugh comedy competition. A writer enters a competition such as this by submitting a unique and innovative piece of writing around the topic of the competition; in this case it was comedy. However the competition is only a fraction of what is provided by a competition set up like this – a message board system is provided for users of like mind to socialise with one another and discuss concepts and ideas. Users provide support for one another. Other non competition message boards exist for writers from all walks of life where support for story writing can be found, these message boards are also often in the field one specialises in such as science fiction.

The Blog in its current form is a recent development in Internet culture. The Weblog has existed for a number of years as a method of sharing links among users of weblogs. The weblog has evolved into a different entity providing a method for documenting the events in an individual’s everyday life; provide a method for providing commentary and opinions. Nardi et al. describe the blog as a new grass routes form of journalism that can provide a way to shape democracy. They describe the blog as providing scope for an enormous variety of expression within a restricted format. Topics can be politics and world events. One blog was used to keep viewers up to date on the health of the individual’s wife who was critically ill with cancer – in this case it provided an outlet for thoughts, feelings and emotion. Some blogs are also kept as works of complete fictions. Two blogs discovered during the course of my own research describe the daily events of two famous film characters between each of their six film appearances. Fictional blogs provide an interesting example to look at from history.

Charles Dickens first released his books in the form of a serialisation. He was rarely ahead of his readers in terms of the story he was creating, one famous example being cited as the character little Nell in the serialisation of the Old Curiosity Shop receiving support from readers so dickens wouldn’t kill her character off. The interest was created because they knew dickens didn’t right in advance, and as such it was possible to attempt to interact in the story writing process. He did kill little Nell off. The sales of stories provided a form of interaction for the serialisation, as dickens would take the poor sales of an edition to be a sign that the story one week wasn’t a success. He would change the next months story accordingly. Blogs can be similar to the serialisation of dickens’s novels in the same way because they are written periodically by bloggers, and input can often be provided on blogs in the form of user comments.

The serialisation of a novel has been shown to create a different reader perception and attachment to the characters involved in stories. The steadied distribution of a story using the internet is an interesting method of publishing a story.

An example making use of innovative web design and interactive design is the story of Oldton told by Tim Wright. The story of Oldton takes place over the course of 52 playing cards that map out the town where the character used to live. The reader can determine his or her own route around the 52-card map by clicking on hyperlinks within the frame created for the story. The story also asks external writers to aid in the story telling. External hyperlinks have been created directing readers to other people works where they can learn more about the story of Oldton.

A website such as this can be accessed by the 126 million users of the Internet. The author can determine the success by how well they advertise the site over the web. Even if it only managed to attract friends, and friends of friends then it reaches more readers than a completely unpublished work.

An example of the importance of being able to release unknown artists works can also be taken from history. The story of the Bodley press is a story created by a man who had an appreciation for fine art, but also wanted to make money on the books he released. John Lane of the Bodley press discovered ways to save money releasing books, including changing print techniques. Two areas he found savings was by releasing the works of unknown artists. The work of unknown artists came cheap, and chosen carefully for the quality of their work by John Lane they slowly gained popularity, which in turn resulted in more people purchasing John Lanes books of poetry. One artist involved in his work was William Butler Yeats.

The unknown artist taking the initiative and releasing works themselves over the Internet cuts out the middleman in a situation similar to that of the Bodley press. Publication costs however are free, and so is word and mouth around the web. Should an unknown artist want to get their work noticed using digital resources then it is completely possible.

References

http://www.adobe.com/products/pagemaker/main.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/tv/lastlaugh/

The Bodley Head Press – Some Bibliographical Extrapolations. R.D. Brown.

Hoffman, D.L. Novak, T. P. Venkatesh, A. Has the Internet become Indispensable? Communications of the ACM, 47(7) July 2004, pp37-42

Nardi, B. A. Schiano, D. J. Gumbrecht, M. Swartz, L. Why We Blog. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), December 2004, pp41-46

www.oldton.com/ - accessed June 12th 2005

Robertson, J. Good, J. Story Creation in Virtual Game Worlds. Communications of the ACM, 48(1), January 2005, pp61-65

Rosenbloom, A. The Blogosphere: Introduction. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), December 2004, pp30-33