More on Nanowrimo

Two things following on from my post about Nanowrimo last week; firstly, having jabbered on about it to a few people and noted their aghast expressions ("50,000 words in one month!?"), I feel compelled to direct the reader on to the following quote from an FAQ on the Nanowrimo site.

"Did you know there is a group in Vancouver that writes novels in a weekend? Yes, and they are fools. Everyone knows that any deep and lasting work of art takes an entire month to make"

Well, quite.

Elsewhere, and more seriously, I remembered reading an article in The Guardian a while back about self-publishing and the new opportunities offered by print on demand technology, and it seems relavent in relation to the above, despite the notion of 'vanity' publishers being a well-publicised black hole. Nevertheless, Publish and Be Damned offer a bespoke publishing service which is unique for being straight-forward and good value. In essence, the principle is this; you send them a ready-to-print manuscript (in other words, your freshly completed Nanowrimo novel) and they print you a copy which you, or indeed anyone, can purchase. The only condition on your part is that you buy ten copies at £6.99 each.

There doesn't seem to be any other catch, other than the fact that you'll have to send 6 copies to the British Library System (or 2 if you're reading this in the States) and that, if you want to sell it commercially, you need to purchase an ISBN. But it's a wonderful idea. So if you fancy writing a novel in November in time for publication for Christmas...

Pete had the great idea that each one of Assistant should write a Nanowrimo novel and when it comes to releasing an Assistant record it'll come accompanied by the latest novel by your favourite member. Now that's what I call a concept album.