It
doesn't sound so bad if you mumble, but even so the thought of it sends a bit
of a chill down my spine – the Hammer Films sort, that is, and not a member of
the pleasure-tingle variety.
These
are authors of eBooks I'm now interviewing. Okay, so they also produce print
copies, but the interviews are primarily aimed at those serving the digital
market. The idea came about with the loss of The Book Show on the Sky Arts channel. Presented by Mariella Frostrup,
it ran from 2008-2013 and featured interviews with the creative movers and
shakers of the printed book world until it was simply dropped by Sky to be
replaced with … nothing.
The
early set was distinctive, looking like a pastel-coloured front room, with book-shaped
coffee tables and a backdrop of giant book spines. Seated comfortably on a
settee, the authors would chat with Mariella – one could be forgiven for thinking she even flirted with some of them – and of course we were party to these conversations with such names as Rosamund
Lupton, Sir Roger Moore, Terry Jones, Kate Mosse, William Boyd, to name just a
few. These meetings were punctuated with short pieces filmed in the homes of,
say, Nicci Gerard and Sean French, Alison Weir, Joseph O'Connor. Other pieces
looked around bookshops with authors such as Ian Sinclair.
Also,
each year a studio marquee was set up at the world-famous Hay Festival and
extra Book Show programmes were made
where guest interviewers such as Sarah Crompton tackled authors before a live
audience (I never noticed her working from a script, so awarded her 10/10 for
that and her excellent way with people). Other book events, such as the Dublin
Writers' Festival, were also included.
It
was amazing to be invited, along with thousands of other viewers, into the
homes and private spaces of these authors as they told us how they created,
their likes and dislikes, their treasured preferences. And I was fascinated to
see where they worked, the scenery amongst which their stories developed and gelled
– hey, I even found myself looking at the details of how their bookcases were
constructed and what their floors were like. Yes, a bit of the woodworker in me
was spilling out, which isn't a bad thing because it shows how I was accepting
these people into my life; they were, after all, speaking to me at the other
end of the camera.
The
show was, quite simply, superb, bringing the authors to the readers in a way that
hadn't been done before. And when, in June 2013, the broadcaster axed it, my
wife and I were devastated. Strangely, about the same time, BBC2 dumped its weekly
Review Show into a monthly slot on a
back burner on BBC4, and The TV Book Club
on Channel 4 – yet another proactive look into books and authors – had disappeared
in 2012.
Now,
there was no way that I could take over and finance the making of a dedicated TV
book programme, but working from a computer, and with software and equipment on
hand from Pin Productions, I thought it would be worth conducting online interviews
with eBook authors, to bring them some exposure, to introduce them to their
readers, to bring their names alive and put voices to them.
eBook
Showtime was born and I grabbed the domain name right away (I've since been
offered large amounts for it). Unfortunately, personal circumstances prevented
me from getting it going until a couple of years later, but it's here now and in
my next post I'll be talking about what it was like doing my first ever Skype interview.
*All
images are screen grabs from the Sky Arts television programme and are used
here for educational purposes.
