Read a Weblit Week?

Hi guys,

So it's Read an E-Book Week again, which is kind of cool. And who would have thought ebooks were 40 years old?

But while I was buying ebooks and sending them to Aldiko and Kindle for Android I had a thought.

Do we want/need a "Read a Weblit Week"? I have a number of reasons for thinking that it's not a bad idea.

1. It gives us a shared platform to get behind. One not based on reviews. Even though I'm setting up The Weblit Review I think that a platform that isn't review based would be helpful. People have a natural inclination to avoid supporting places where they've been panned - we don't want to limit either our support or our honesty.

2. In my experience people are more likely to try new stuff during special events. And if we can get a whole bunch of people to try weblit some of them will stick around.

3. It gives a short period of time to focus attention on. Meaning we can make a concentrated burst instead of diluting our efforts by spreading them out.

4. I think it would be fun. Er, yes, never say fun isn't important.

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So that being so how do we go about it?

1. We need a website and domain name. Neither of these is hard to obtain. I'd recommend weblitweek.com I think.

2. We need to decide on a date. Do we put it close to Read an E-Book week to try and piggyback off its success (which would leave us waiting until 2012 since it's too late this year)? Or do we put in autumn so as not to exhaust people with to many things? (In which case we can possibly do it this year).

3. The site will need a good design. Beyond that how much do we emulate the ebook week site's structure? Sections on "History" and "Benefits" definitely. The "Readers" and "e-book store" sections are a bit pointless for weblit. "Partners" - um, yes, well. Not sure how those would work here. "Promotion" - well, obviously.

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Now between writing my serial, trying to get The Weblit Review set up and launched, and working a full time job I don't really have time to work on someone else and I can't really afford to setup another new website. But if other people are willing to pay for the hosting and work on the design etc I am willing to pay for the domain name and research and write the "history of online fiction" article for the site.

And, of course, to put my all into helping to promote it.

(ps I'll be posting this up at my blog as well)

Becka