Hi all – first time posting here.
My name is Sam Dyer and I run the publishing house Bitmap Books.
I’ve been asked multiple times on Twitter and Facebook as to whether Kieren Hawken is involved within our new book – Atari 2600/7800: a visual compendium. These questions have come out of the blue and I (maybe naively) wasn’t expecting so much interest in his involvement. We engaged Kieren back in 2019 to come on-board as part of the team to help create the book and he has ghostwritten some parts, along with other writers. It’s important to say that I’ve had no issue with his work and the working relationship has been fine.
Our books are very much a team effort so the overall writing is a combination of many contributors, including the original developers. When we cannot reach the original developer for a game, that entry is ghostwritten – something we’ve done since our NES book. When listing contributors on our website, we don’t tend to list ghostwriters and traditionally these have been credited within the book, not publicly.
I had no idea of the interest that his involvement would incur. The book was a HUGE undertaking and around 9 months of work and officially licensed from Atari. It has has been verified and fact-checked as best we can by other Atari enthusiasts and proofreaders. This is something we do on all books so I’m confident that it’s as accurate as it can be.
If you guys wish to boycott the book based on the above then I can’t stop that, but I wanted to publicly state the facts regarding Kieren’s involvement and squash the speculation.
If anyone has any questions about the book, please email hello@bitmapbooks.co.uk and I’ll do my best to answer.
Thanks, Sam