Photo by Ravi Kant at Pexels.
The six stories I wrote for The three and a half day parent were for a new media/book project called Byteback, which basically meant readers could download work for free and ensure the romantically enduring image of writers as impoverished was sustained. In less than one year the Route online magazine (launched in Feb 2005) has published eleven byteback books and distributed over 5000 copies of them. This was way over their estimation, but as Route editor Ian Daley explains; ‘for us the important part of Byteback was to generate work and allow us to provide space and opportunity for writers, it’s a real bonus that the writing is being read in such numbers. The work done by Tom Palmer et al with Four Fathers alone was outstanding given the newness of the idea, I think they gave over twenty readings, and hopefully 2006 will bring further development of that project.’
Route are now kicking off February with A Route Compendium, which is a small anthology of Byteback books, some of which are already on the site and some feature new work. They hope that this can develop into a regular feature and a progression route for some of the work they publish. The Bytebacks have been very successful but as Ian goes on to say ‘we’re fully aware that the format, technology and necessary origami is not to everyone’s liking, so to move some of the work into printed books is a natural course. Watch this space.