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The Writers’ Web

Author - Brian Howard

Most writers and story editors today work on a computer. Writers’ Web is a web reference guide for authors, yet serves a much wider audience. It begins with computer basics, cyberspace, getting online and how to find your way around with a browser. It identifies protocol, addresses and explains with lists, domain names and their type for understanding how to search on the web in general. Pictorial displays are given for visual learning. Bookmarks, hyperlinks and electronic mail with free e-mail listings like: www.hotmail.com and www.rocketmail.com are explained.

Your mind is soon triggered with questions and dreams of what the web can mean to a writer . . . . to you! Perhaps:

          — Interactive stories, with many people online, writing chapters and sequences or "a never ending story" . . .

          — Exchange of ideas and communication with the most talented writers of this age or . . . your favorite "old classic" at your fingertips without that trip to the library or the bookstore . . .

          — Limitless possibilities and opportunities and yet numerous questions.

"Who can put anothers’ work online?" "Can magazine publishers, who pay writers to print their articles, also republish them electronically?"

(Already courts are deciding these and many more questions this web era is creating. In 1997, it was ruled that newspapers/magazines "en toto" could be republished without contacting the articles’ author, however individual articles and content could not. Refer to www.ljx.com/topdecision/tasini.html. for a complete ruling.)

Interested in a writers' group or organization? Need your book typed, critiqued, edited or an agent? This book holds countless sources. Sites are given for programs and tools for word processing, document conversion, script formatting, etc. Shareware and Freeware can be downloaded.

A reference library, Research It, at: www.iTools.com/research-it/research-it.html has one of the largest selections of reference books online and is set for you to enter query terms and follow a link directly to the results. My Virtual Reference Desk at: www.refdesk.com will be informative and entertaining taking you all over the world with capabilities of connecting one on one with the most talented.

You will find resources for editors, publishers, submission guidelines and even an Authors’ Registry for royalty collection. Copyright information can be found at lcweb.loc.gov/copyright.

If this step by step instruction, isn’t enough for $29.95, there is a CD-ROM included with 17 + programs for evaluation and use. Two that may temp you are:

          Collaborator, a story building assistant

          Grammar Slammer (For those of us who were English majors, but are now in need of a refresher course when it comes to publishing our memoirs.)

Finally, if for no other reason to purchase this book, there’s the Bookmark File, imported into your Netscape Navigator, making surfing a breeze and all addresses easy access.

As a novice with a desire to publish, I found this book invaluable. The web sites I plugged into were in tact and full of knowledge and resource. Mr. Howard has done some detailed cyberspace research for "literary lovers."

The Writers’ Web by Brian Howard

Abacus: www.abacuspub.com

ISBN 1-5755-332-7 - $29.95