Help required. Book review.

[DLJ]

(05-11-2012 09:50 PM)Near Wrote:  Is this mutual friend you?

No sir, not me.

I don't have the attention span / dedication to write a book (although I want to).

Short bursts is my forté... poetry and vitriolic attacks on preachers.


Bucky is in, btw so now we are 6.

Grassy, you get to be Robert Vaughn... practice catching those flies and keep your gun hand steady.



All,
I think the best approach is to take a chunk each and see how it goes.

I have offered to review / rewrite the marketing blurb (I do this kinda thing for work, anyway) and I have started.

Author, author,
Please reply to my last email.
We are all going to want from you an idea about what you want to achieve i.e. what is the "vision".

If you are aiming for an academic tome we will read the material in that light.
If you are aiming for the self-help market, again the style needs to be appropriate.
If you are aiming to be the next Hitchens with an arse-kicking polemic, then we will be reviewing as such.


For example (at the risk of pissing you off straight away), the book title itself may have to change i.e.

Academic market: Current title is ok.
Self-help market: Getting Over Christianity.
Arse-kick market: Get Over It!

If the latter, I have written this as the 200 character Sentence Description:

"Know Thy Enemy! The indispensable guide for waverers,
challenged ex-Christians, out-and-out militant atheists or anyone who just
enjoys the debate. Get Over It by <author's name> is all you need.


Please advise, my liege.


Your humble servant
blah blah.

[Buddy Christ]

(04-11-2012 09:22 AM)DLJ Wrote:  A mutual friend of ours (I'm sure you can work out who) is soon to publish a mighty tome.

Yes but it's mainly pictures cos it's a critique on recent trends in hard-core pornography.

It's about Christianity

I... I just wanted to make sure you're not talking about me. I feel like I walked into a birthday party and can't tell if that Surprise! was for me or if I just walked in at a bad time. I'm assuming it's not, or I would have heard something from you, plus I'm already published... but my detective skills were picking up all sorts of clues.

If you still need a 7th, I can be that cynical asshole who no one invited, intent on only giving outlandish advise that nobody wants (Have you considered using Wingdings for your font? How do you feel about glitter on the book cover? I think your marketing funds should be spent heavily on small Indonesian tribal villages.).

Wild Card, bitches!

[Chas]

(06-11-2012 12:19 AM)DLJ Wrote:  

(05-11-2012 09:26 PM)Chas Wrote:  I get to be McQueen.

Yup, cos you signed up first.

If I remember rightly, he was also the first to get shot. Just a flesh wound of course.

I've always wanted to be able to say "I'm OK, it's only a flesh wound".

[Magoo]

Lol 2 weeks ago I had a full book review to be done in school, that we had 2 months to do. With 1 day to go I still hadn't even finalised reading the book, never mind a full review. It was 8 o clock at night and I thought, shit I need to have that book review done.

Anyway I went onto the Internet, copied and pasted everything from the Internet. Took an hour to do 2 months work. Got away with it. Success!

[Bucky Ball]

Ok. I put 2 + 2 together. I've already read it. It's an excellent book. This will be easy.

[DLJ]

(06-11-2012 01:45 AM)Buddy Christ Wrote:  

(04-11-2012 09:22 AM)DLJ Wrote:  A mutual friend of ours (I'm sure you can work out who) is soon to publish a mighty tome.

Yes but it's mainly pictures cos it's a critique on recent trends in hard-core pornography.

It's about Christianity

I... I just wanted to make sure you're not talking about me. I feel like I walked into a birthday party and can't tell if that Surprise! was for me or if I just walked in at a bad time. I'm assuming it's not, or I would have heard something from you, plus I'm already published... but my detective skills were picking up all sorts of clues.

If you still need a 7th, I can be that cynical asshole who no one invited, intent on only giving outlandish advise that nobody wants (Have you considered using Wingdings for your font? How do you feel about glitter on the book cover? I think your marketing funds should be spent heavily on small Indonesian tribal villages.).

Wild Card, bitches!

Cheers, Buddy.
It wouldn't hurt to get some different angles. I wouldn't have thought of glitter.

We are 7.

Cheers.

[DLJ]

(08-11-2012 12:12 PM)Magoo Wrote:  Lol 2 weeks ago I had a full book review to be done in school, that we had 2 months to do. With 1 day to go I still hadn't even finalised reading the book, never mind a full review. It was 8 o clock at night and I thought, shit I need to have that book review done.

Anyway I went onto the Internet, copied and pasted everything from the Internet. Took an hour to do 2 months work. Got away with it. Success!

LOL Magoo.

I guess we had better give you a fixed deadline then.

This time the Internet can't help you as no previous reviews exist. The letters and words have used before but the sentences and paragraphs and chapters are original.

Cheers.

[Buddy Christ]

(08-11-2012 12:23 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote:  Ok. I put 2 + 2 together. I've already read it. It's an excellent book. This will be easy.

Well if that's the entire book: "2 plus 2 equals what? The end."

Then it really IS easy.

[Bucky Ball]

Yes, indeedy.
It's a book about the apocalypse and math dyslexics.
The end is triggered when a math error is inadvertently made, and it is discovered in Bible code,
as it was prophesied.

[Grassy Knoll]

DLJ, have you considered creating a private forum for easy discussion and collaboration about things? Ideas could be floated and sorted among a group instead of you or the author being bombarded with bunches of emails. Google groups or something like this might do http://www.createmybb.com/

Just from my first skimming I do have one suggestion on a better system for the web links being cited. First of all, a complex link doesn't work on printed paper. Second, it's bad flow. They don't look pleasing to the eye having to jump around them or read in between them. Third, unless you own a link yourself you have no way of controlling or changing a bad/dead link. How about making any links being referenced in the book simply collated onto a single webpage? A web based appendix. That way if a link needs to be updated or changed it can forever be a relevant reference.

I understand that this is still a work in progress so I apologize to the author if this is already on the to do list.

If I'm fitting myself into the list properly it looks like I'll be taking Chapters 20 through 23. How will you have me make my report?