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Book
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Jane
Dorner's 'The Internet: A Writer's Guide'
Buy
this book at Amazon.co.uk
Before I tell
you how I feel about Jane Dorner's 'The Internet: A Writer's
Guide' is, I'd better confess: I'm mentioned in it. Twice. Here's
how generous I'm feeling. On one of the two occasions McDonald becomes
misprinted as Mcdonald, and trAce is included without the capital
A in the middle, but in spite of that I'm prepared to say: Read
this book.
The Guide is
clearly and well-organised into sections covering getting connected,
e-mail, the World Wide Web and virtual communities. Then Jane Dorner
goes on to look at new writing opportunities, and ways of electronic
publishing, before briefly tackling some of the issues that cyber-travel
brings in its wake.
Invention occasionally
pokes through - I particularly like her new words 'democrazine'
(no, folks, not a tranquilliser), and '{c}yber-right' for electronic
copyright. But mostly this is a brisk and sensible guide that doesn't
mind offering you its opinion here and there but mostly sticks to
facts and reasonable speculation. She's cool calm and collected
about viruses, more relaxed about the spread of the advertising
culture than most Netizens, and is a bit dismissive of my favourite
search engine www.google.com.
Alongside these
minor disagreements are some excellent insights for different kinds
of writers. Because I'm not a journalist, for instance, I was fascinated
by the discussion of 'e-mail interviewing' and how that works. The
new-to-all-this-technology writer will also find the book useful,
even if occasionally it's almost impossible to talk about the new
electronic world without assuming some prior knowledge.
And the links
are terrific. They form Part 2 of the book, and a website in their
own right at www.internetwriter.co.uk,
already updated since publication. Structured along the same lines
as the book, they nevertheless represent a valuable resource in
their own right for anything from search engines to script formats,
from web communities to writers' circles. Order the book on the
Internet while you're online, why don't you?
Alan McDonald,
May 2000
Buy
this book at Amazon.co.uk
and help trAce at no cost to yourself!
Dorner,
Jane: A & C Black, January 2000
"Internet: A writer's guide"
reviewed by Alan McDonald, May 2000
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