Apparently, it does. My wife, Crystal Rayne, who is an avid online gamer and WoW player, recently wrote a fantasy type book with another online gamer, and the artist for the book is also an online gamer - this in itself is kind of a weird ordeal to have online gamers writing a book together, but what makes it even more weird is that my wife is in the USA, the co-writer ( Konrad Hollenstein ) who is a law official, and former body guard, and lives in Germany, and the artist ( Tomaz Mrevlje ) is in Slovenia!! They have never even met, but have done one heck of a job writing this book together.
Earlier today, I posted one of the chapters of the book on one of the Amazon.com websites for people to read, as a pre-sale thing. I am doing the marketing for them, so I could use all the help I can get from other online gamers. Hopefully, I can get your help by spreading the word. Thanks!!
Here is a link to the chapter that is available to read for free.
A Special Thank you to Jeff (Forum Administrator) for allowing me to post this.
For whatever it is worth, This is the news article that will be published by the Associated Press on August 1 of this year:
International Online Gamers Write Fantasy Book Without Ever Having Met
Two online gamers, embarked on the writing of a fictional fantasy type book together and enlisted another online gamer for the art design and illustration coordinator, without ever having met each other. Their book is set to be published in July, 2010.
Blairsville, Ga., August 1, 2010 – Writing a book to be published is a difficult task, but when you write a book with people from different countries and have never met them, the task becomes a little more difficult. Three on-line gamers have done this, however, and their book SAGAR’UN is set to be published through createspace.com and Amazon.com in late July, 2010.
Crystal Rayne (38), the lead author of the book is from the United States, and is a mother of 7 children, and an online gamer. Konrad Hollenstein (38) is from Germany, who is a law official, and former body guard , and is from Germany. Hollenstein is the co-writer of the book. Tomaz Mrevlje (28) is a self-taught freelance designer from Slovenia, who enjoys photo manipulation and creating 3D Enviroments most and is currently getting a degree in web design and development. His role was creating the books cover, handling all other visual aspects of this project and assisting in PR.
The three met in an online game called Enemy Territory several years, and started writing for fun on a forum that belonged to the gaming clan that they were all part of. Years later, Crystal Rayne and Konrad Hollenstein decided to take their writing a step further and actually attempt to write a book. Rayne solicited Tomaz Mrevlje for the artwork for the book and all future projects of this series, and he was very happy to be a part of the book.
The book, SAGAR’UN is a fictional fantasy book that is like no other. Some of the people within the book are actual people from around the globe that Rayne and Hollenstein have met through on-line gaming. Wael and Modar, two of the characters in the book, and brothers in real life are also bothers in the book as well. Rayne met Wael and Modar through another online game called Silkroad, and eventually became friends with their entire family through email and Facebook, but none of them have never met. Wael and Modar live in Saudi Arabia, and their mother, Safa, who is not an online gamer, is depicted as a Goddess on the book. Other characters, such as Fang, a Hellraiser, is based on parts of the personality of another silkroad gamer from Mexico named Juan, Seska who is based on a lady named Hafdis from Iceland, is a splashy young viking girl from the "frozen land". Tomaz, the book’s artist, is also Tomaz in the book, and his girlfriend Daniella appears as Nela in the book.
Rayne and Hollenstein, themselves, are characters in the book. Crystal Rayne is one of the main characters in the book called Amethyst Rain, and Konrad Hollenstein is another primary character named Ragnar.
Rayne has planned out roughly 12 books for this series. Rayne is also working on another book that revolves around some historical events that occurred in, and around, Banning, Montana, but is not yet published.
A preview of one of the chapters of the book can be read for free at:
http://sagarun.com
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