Fictionaut in O’Reilly’s Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto

“Projects from the Bleeding Edge” — that’s us! Fictionaut co-founder Jürgen Fauth contributed a chapter on our community to Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto, a collection of essays about the state of publishing edited by Hugh McGuire and Brian O’Leary,  now available from O’Reilly.

McGuire explains:

The “idea” of this book was to explore “the idea of a book.” We wanted to get away from the abstract or philosophical, and make a practical guide for the publishing world — for someone just starting a publishing enterprise today, for people in the business already, and for authors and self-publishers who want to think beyond “upload my book to Kindle.”

In his essay, Jürgen talks about his first steps on the literary Internet in the nineties to Fictionaut’s conception, launch and beyond:

Would we really be able to run an online magazine that allowed anyone to post? We weren’t sure, but we were going to try —after all, on the Internet, if something is possible, somebody is going to do it sooner or later, so why not us?

You can read the essay online for free. Other contributors to Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto include Jacob Lewis, Valla Vakili, Travis Alber, Aaron Miller, Kassia Krozser, and Brett Sandusky. Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto is availble in print from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and O’Reilly, as well as online in its entirety. Thanks to Hugh McGuire and Brian O’Leary for having us!