Who are we and why are we doing this?
We are a group of authors, editors and publishers who think
that WEbook is the key to unlocking something different, needed and, hopefully,
completely game-changing.
With decades of experience writing, editing and publishing
between us, we’ve learned most of the tricks that the business has to offer.
But we’ve also watched as the industry that we love,
undergoes the paradigm shift we are experiencing today – partly digital
revolution, partly the dangers of monopoly publishing and distribution, and
partly the world’s changing attitudes to reading, to consuming content.
WEbook offers something different.
You come on WEbook because you want to, not because you have
to – to share ideas, discuss stories, writing and books. And the hundreds of
thousands of you that do just that, represent a great hope for the whole
publishing industry.
So what happened over the last three months?
As for so many of you, WEbook disappeared from our lives
without warning on December 21st 2012.
Given the holiday season, we didn’t get a chance to react
until the New Year by which time, the trail had gone apparently very cold. The
only people answering emails were the company that had hosted the website – and
their answer was not what we wanted to hear. The site and the database
associated with it, had been wiped completely – no-one to pay the bills, meant
instant and total eradication.
It took us most of January to track down the original code
for the site and a further two weeks to secure it, the name and all the
associated accounts – including all the legal requirements. And by the time we
tweeted on 15th February, we had a completely rebuilt site. The
trouble is, that it had no users, no projects, no forums or indeed, anything
remotely useful. It was like watching tumbleweed blow across your screen.
And then we got lucky.
It seems that one of the original team (many thanks – you
know who you are!) told us where we could find a back-up of the database taken when
they sold the site to the new owners at the beginning of 2012, and once the
legal side of it all had been sorted out, we were able to reunite WEbook with a
slightly out-of-date version of itself, and that is what we've been working on since.
To everyone who has lost any work, we are really sorry and
completely sympathetic.
Now, please, don’t shoot the messenger! We’ve done (and are
still doing) our best to restore whatever there is to restore. And to be
honest, we didn’t think we’d get as much back as we have done already, but this
news will undoubtedly disappoint a fair number of you.
Stick with us though. We are well funded, well intentioned,
and yes, we keep a copy of the database off-site!
Our plans are to listen to you all, and to make WEbook not
just great again, but unique, revolutionary and game-changing.
So what have we got at the moment?
The site we have working, is as close to the one you were
all familiar with, as possible. But don't believe us, believe the thousands of you who signed up to help.
And at this point we'd like to pay a special thanks to all of you who did just that - for your enthusiasm, support and ideas.
We're almost finished debugging - something's wonky with Facebook and a couple of cosmetic hitches - and we're planning on switching the site back on next week (the first week of April).
We’ve got plans and ideas, but the starting
point had to be the status quo. And we are listening to you – the writing
community – and learning. It’s your site, it’s your writing, it’s your
community. (And we suspect that many of you know more about WEbook than we do!)
We'll let you know when we go live and we hope you come and join us. It'll be great to have you all back!
