Bill
21st January 2005, 10:53 AM
Book Group Online has its official launch day this coming Tuesday, January 25th 2005.
This is the press release, written by our excellent PR Andrea Marks:
WHERE CAN YOU GO TO RUBBISH THE DA VINCI CODE?
TV writer creates Internet forum for anyone who’s ever read a book
So you got these books for Christmas…and you’ve read all of them, and now you want to talk about them, to see if other people agree with your opinion. Unfortunately not one of your family, colleagues or friends has read The Plot Against America, or My World by Jonny Wilkinson. or Lemony Snicket’s The Grim Grotto. What do you do?
Most of us would just sit back and moan that there isn’t a book club whose members will have read what we’ve been reading, but not writer and TV producer Bill Matthews. He got to work and created one. The result is Book Group Online – an Internet book forum for everyone who’s ever read a book.
When he’s not creating and producing hit shows like They Think It’s All Over and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Bill is a voracious reader with passionate opinions about books. He had the idea for Book Group Online when he was on holiday in a Devon apartment and read a novel which had been left there by the owner. He thought it was so bad that he looked on the Internet for a books forum, just so he could rubbish it.* Failing to find a website to vent his spleen, he and his wife, life coach and former journalist Luise Finan, decided to create one.
Within six weeks, Book Group Online was born. The site has been beta testing since shortly before Christmas and already has over 200 founder members. It launches officially on 25th January, and judging from early comments on the website - www.bookgrouponline.com - there are a lot of people out there with something to get off their chests. (Just look at the postings about The Da Vinci Code: around 35 of them to date, with the majority not very complimentary to the top seller of 2004 – 1.6million copies since publication in March.)
“It is impossible to read a book without having an opinion about it, whether you like it or not,” says Bill Matthews, “Reading is a far more involved and involving experience than watching a television programme or a film, and much more personal: it’s just you and the author. And when you read the last line of the last page, all kinds of opinions and emotions lie dormant within you, just waiting to be let out.”
At a time when the group experience of terrestrial TV is no longer so common, what do people talk about around the water cooler or in the staff room over lunch? If you listen in, they may well be talking about books they've been reading. At the same time, in a world where interests are widening, when more and more books are being published, the chances have diminished that someone within your circle will be reading the same book as you.
This is why book groups began in the first place: so that a group of people could read the same book at the same time. But given today’s demands, not everyone can spare a whole evening after a day’s work, or read a book to a deadline, or face the journey to a meeting. Book Group Online was created as a group for the whole population, wherever they are.
At Book Group Online, members are free to vent their opinions to the world, and to enter into discussions and debates with other readers about the books they’ve read, in as much or as little detail as they wish: to talk about parts of a plot they didn’t like or didn’t get, to discuss the characters they liked or didn’t like, to spread the word about books they like or dislike, to correct the author on points of detail or simply to say what they thought.
Forums about specific authors and books are accessible alphabetically or via bestseller lists and the organisers hope that Book Group Online will become the place to go to when people are deciding what to read next.
In addition to book reviews and opinions, Book Group Online features a range of forums where discussion is not tied to particular books, but can be on a wide range of subjects. There’s a forum for authors to discuss their own and fellow authors’ titles; a special area for children’s and young adult books, with forums for under-18s and for their parents or teachers; even a forum where members can discuss ‘anything they like, as long as it isn’t about books.’ The Book Chain Game takes you from The House at Pooh Corner to The Fall of the House of Usher in one leap, and one founder member has started an online reading group, with Philip Roth’s controversial bestseller The Plot Against America as the first selected title.
“The forum is being built by readers,” says founder Bill Matthews. “What we are hoping will develop are smaller communities within the large community, each with its own character. I think of it as like living in a small town: we each have places we like to visit, and others we go to only occasionally. In Book Group Online, you can linger for as long as you want - and you don't even have to buy a drink. You might call it an open book!”
ends
21 January 2005
For further information, call Andrea Marks, 0208 958 4398 or email andrea@andreamarks.co.uk
Note to editors
Book Group Online founder Bill Matthews is available for interview through Andrea Marks.
*He may even be persuaded to reveal the book which inspired him to create the forum.
Bill Matthews has been a writer for twenty years, working mostly in television and radio. Together with Simon Bullivant, he created BBC1’s long-running comedy sports quiz They Think It’s All Over, which he also produced for a number of series, and he was one of the devisers of BBC2’s comedy pop quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks. As well as producing television shows like the BBC2 game show Liar, Bill has written two original comedy/drama series for Radio 4, a stage play, several documentaries and adaptations, sketch shows, panel games and quizzes. He co-wrote the book Stand Up If You Hate Man United.
This is the press release, written by our excellent PR Andrea Marks:
WHERE CAN YOU GO TO RUBBISH THE DA VINCI CODE?
TV writer creates Internet forum for anyone who’s ever read a book
So you got these books for Christmas…and you’ve read all of them, and now you want to talk about them, to see if other people agree with your opinion. Unfortunately not one of your family, colleagues or friends has read The Plot Against America, or My World by Jonny Wilkinson. or Lemony Snicket’s The Grim Grotto. What do you do?
Most of us would just sit back and moan that there isn’t a book club whose members will have read what we’ve been reading, but not writer and TV producer Bill Matthews. He got to work and created one. The result is Book Group Online – an Internet book forum for everyone who’s ever read a book.
When he’s not creating and producing hit shows like They Think It’s All Over and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Bill is a voracious reader with passionate opinions about books. He had the idea for Book Group Online when he was on holiday in a Devon apartment and read a novel which had been left there by the owner. He thought it was so bad that he looked on the Internet for a books forum, just so he could rubbish it.* Failing to find a website to vent his spleen, he and his wife, life coach and former journalist Luise Finan, decided to create one.
Within six weeks, Book Group Online was born. The site has been beta testing since shortly before Christmas and already has over 200 founder members. It launches officially on 25th January, and judging from early comments on the website - www.bookgrouponline.com - there are a lot of people out there with something to get off their chests. (Just look at the postings about The Da Vinci Code: around 35 of them to date, with the majority not very complimentary to the top seller of 2004 – 1.6million copies since publication in March.)
“It is impossible to read a book without having an opinion about it, whether you like it or not,” says Bill Matthews, “Reading is a far more involved and involving experience than watching a television programme or a film, and much more personal: it’s just you and the author. And when you read the last line of the last page, all kinds of opinions and emotions lie dormant within you, just waiting to be let out.”
At a time when the group experience of terrestrial TV is no longer so common, what do people talk about around the water cooler or in the staff room over lunch? If you listen in, they may well be talking about books they've been reading. At the same time, in a world where interests are widening, when more and more books are being published, the chances have diminished that someone within your circle will be reading the same book as you.
This is why book groups began in the first place: so that a group of people could read the same book at the same time. But given today’s demands, not everyone can spare a whole evening after a day’s work, or read a book to a deadline, or face the journey to a meeting. Book Group Online was created as a group for the whole population, wherever they are.
At Book Group Online, members are free to vent their opinions to the world, and to enter into discussions and debates with other readers about the books they’ve read, in as much or as little detail as they wish: to talk about parts of a plot they didn’t like or didn’t get, to discuss the characters they liked or didn’t like, to spread the word about books they like or dislike, to correct the author on points of detail or simply to say what they thought.
Forums about specific authors and books are accessible alphabetically or via bestseller lists and the organisers hope that Book Group Online will become the place to go to when people are deciding what to read next.
In addition to book reviews and opinions, Book Group Online features a range of forums where discussion is not tied to particular books, but can be on a wide range of subjects. There’s a forum for authors to discuss their own and fellow authors’ titles; a special area for children’s and young adult books, with forums for under-18s and for their parents or teachers; even a forum where members can discuss ‘anything they like, as long as it isn’t about books.’ The Book Chain Game takes you from The House at Pooh Corner to The Fall of the House of Usher in one leap, and one founder member has started an online reading group, with Philip Roth’s controversial bestseller The Plot Against America as the first selected title.
“The forum is being built by readers,” says founder Bill Matthews. “What we are hoping will develop are smaller communities within the large community, each with its own character. I think of it as like living in a small town: we each have places we like to visit, and others we go to only occasionally. In Book Group Online, you can linger for as long as you want - and you don't even have to buy a drink. You might call it an open book!”
ends
21 January 2005
For further information, call Andrea Marks, 0208 958 4398 or email andrea@andreamarks.co.uk
Note to editors
Book Group Online founder Bill Matthews is available for interview through Andrea Marks.
*He may even be persuaded to reveal the book which inspired him to create the forum.
Bill Matthews has been a writer for twenty years, working mostly in television and radio. Together with Simon Bullivant, he created BBC1’s long-running comedy sports quiz They Think It’s All Over, which he also produced for a number of series, and he was one of the devisers of BBC2’s comedy pop quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks. As well as producing television shows like the BBC2 game show Liar, Bill has written two original comedy/drama series for Radio 4, a stage play, several documentaries and adaptations, sketch shows, panel games and quizzes. He co-wrote the book Stand Up If You Hate Man United.