Episode IV: A New Hope

[Password protection now removed and comments closed]

You might know that over the last year I’ve been compiling a list of all the blogs related to the Transforming Legal Aid consultation and the justice cuts. If you’ve been given the password to read this page then at least one of your blog posts are included too and I’d be grateful if you’d keep what I have to say here to yourself for the time being – professional trust and all that

What’s this about

I’m asking for your permission to reproduce your blog post(s) concerning the Transforming Legal Aid consultation/justice cuts (those you published prior to the 27th Feb this year)

Who has agreed so far and invites status (edit: now final list)

For the last two months I’ve been compiling all the blogs written during the consultation period, formatting, optimising and turning them into a book – or more precisely, an ebook (though it wouldn’t be difficult for me to produce a print ready manuscript now too). Its working title is ‘Saving Justice’

It’s cross-platform and can be viewed on whatever smartphone or gadget you have: Kindle (all types, including Paperwhite, Fire and DX), iPhones and iPad (through the Kindle app (.mobi version) or iBooks (.epub version), other tablets and Android smart-phones and so on. It can also be read on computers and Macs through ebook reader apps

With your permission I intend to finish sorting it out and publish it within the next two months – I think it will take me that long getting everyone’s permission – but I want it ready in advance of the anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta on 15th June (my birthday too). I want to make it available as a free download [NB: see update #5 below in comments – issues with Amazon not allowing ‘free forever’ – will be using Apple iBooks as they do. A cheap paid version on Amazon is also possible]

We’ll need to agree the wording of the copyright statement at some point – something like ‘remains with the authors’ perhaps. We can revisit this later or feel free to give your views in the comments below

Why bother

It raises awareness and I think opens up a potential new avenue of interest in the Save UK Justice story, the Justice Alliance and what’s going on with legal aid and in our justice system right now. Personally, I think through all your perspectives it gives incredible insight and is likely to attract many new people to look at the issues. It’s also just incredible to read – it’s fascinating, really moving and makes you want to find out more. I can’t emphasise enough just how powerful it comes across when you start going through all the individual blogs coordinated into book format

It’s also worth mentioning that using whatever gadget you happen to be reading the book on you can use the inbuilt features to do things like search the book for keywords, particular authors, mentions, people, topics etc. You can count frequencies, create statistics pulled from the accumulation of all your work from all over the web but in one place. It’s a historian/researcher’s dream

A bit of detail on content and layout

Each of your posts in the book links back to the original on your blog so it will be useful for your own traffic and raising awareness of what you write about. Any links you included have been reformatted and work so readers can access whatever other content you originally included or referred to in their browser whilst reading the book. The book also includes all your pictures, image links to the videos you created, podcasts and so on. In other words, it is what you wrote as is but presented in rich ebook format (currently .mobi and .epub). Each article throughout is sequential, date order, broken down by month, running from April 2013 when the consultation was first announced through to February 2014 when the government gave its decision

It’s just the blogs. Other than a short introduction explaining what the book is there’s no narrative from me or anyone else

It’s the biggest piece of techie/legal hybrid work I’ve ever undertaken and has, to be honest, been a major ball-breaker

What next

For now I’m just floating this to a few of you whose work is included who I know on Twitter or elsewhere. I’d like some feedback really – what do you reckon? Most importantly, would you be happy letting me include your blog posts? Basically, are you in? I guess the next stage, if people are up for it, will be to let people check their posts in the draft, just in case they don’t want certain ones included or would like me to fine tune them. Anyway, that’s not for now

Example section

Here’s a little example as a PDF. It’s only a very basic PDF but you should get the rough idea – beginning bits, a chunk of the articles and the end bit. I’ve not bothered formatting it for PDF so it’s not perfect eg articles don’t start on their own pages as in the ebook for one. I’ve taken the full .mobi manuscript I linked to last night down as it could get messy with lots of versions kicking around and this page was also getting a bit technical with my stuff on Kindle Previewer etc. If the two people I gave the link to this page to last night have the copy please don’t circulate it

However, happy to send the whole thing to anyone if they do want to see it, just let me know

Can you reply below with what you think so others can see where we’re going with this?

Or let me know via Twitter @ilegal or email theteam@ilegal.org.uk

Thanks for reading

UPDATE #2 (Sunday 7.52am)

I’ve started keeping tabs on who has been asked and who has replied. You can view the spreadsheet online (edit: now final list). If anyone knows any of those who haven’t been contacted yet by all means invite them as I invited you (don’t forget the password). Just let me know so I can update the spreadsheet (email or DM me: theteam@ilegal.org.uk or @ilegal). Otherwise, I’ll start trying to contact them directly through their blogs/emails during the week

I was communicating with a couple of you last night and I confirm that I will make a complete draft available prior to publication so you have a final opportunity to be reassured (that this isn’t a cunning Grayling-esque scheme) and pull out if you’re not happy with the final book. I’m confident you won’t so happy to be fully transparent throughout

Thanks again everyone, especially those who’ve commented below. It makes it all the more worthwhile that you can see where I’m going with this!

I’ll leave all future updates as ‘comments’ below. You can subscribe to the comments to this post to keep up with what’s going on

UPDATE #6: THE COVER (scroll down through the comments for previous updates)

Feel free to comment – it’s only a screen grab, the actual one used will be high res. It’s not your traditional legalish type cover – I don’t like them, they’re only attractive to legalish type people. I think this has broad appeal and given it’s about getting people to look who might not usually bother, I reckon it’s the way to go. That said, I have a terrible habit of changing my mind so don’t be surprised if you see an entirely different cover in a week or so!