It seems fitting that a show about new social networking technology gone wrong would be announced weeks after Google+ graced our screens. It’s almost like Singer knew + was coming. Like a conspiracy… In any case, if you want to learn more about the series, go here. Otherwise, enjoy the video: It looks pretty awesome, doesn’t it? (Thanks for SF Signal for the find.)
Two things: 1. The Lizards and Financial Mumbo Jumbo The last couple weeks have contributed tremendously to my long history of garbage-ness. I had to have one of my lizards (Taj) put down, today marks the day when my other lizard is expected to go into surgery (Noodles), and so on. Emotionally, I’m in one of those “well, life kinda sucks, but at least I woke up today” moods. Such events also have other ramifications — namely, financial ones (my vet has been very kind to me and allowed me to defer payments on some things; they’ve also reduced the cost of some of the bills when they didn’t have to — but cremation services and the like have still put a strain on my financials). I’ve got about $5 until next Friday, which I hope will be a large paycheck, because I really don’t need any more small ones; the first was pitiful considering that most grad students have nothing to work with over the summer. I’ve never understood why the University of Florida pushes back the payment process by several weeks so that you don’t get paid properly until a month into your teaching job, followed by a month or so of left over payments that they might as well have made during the semester. It’s the most bizarre payment scheme imaginable, and it causes a lot of grad students a lot of stress, since their financial situation prior to arriving here didn’t exactly make the transition easy. We start poor, we stay poor, and re-orienting the bills doesn’t exactly change this cycle… In any case, that’s sort of where I’m at. I’m sitting here, in my apartment, hoping that when the phone rings I don’t end up with a “so, he passed away during surgery” call. And I’m worried about whether what I have in my cupboard can keep me fed, or if some strange charge will throw me in the negative on my bank account, and so on. This must be what real life feels like. I don’t like it. But I’ve learned a life lesson, which is one I won’t forget any time soon. I’ll be better prepared next year. 2. The Funding Project (The World in the Satin Bag and “the Status”) In other news, since I’m rambling a bit here, I’d like to let you all know that I will be making a video of myself doing embarrassing things, as per our public agreement for reaching my funding goal of $1,000. You can still donate to the project if you’d like; I will honor the original fundraising scheme I set up here, so any donations will still earn you free stuff. I intend to spend the next week practicing, because I want to be really good at the Truffle Shuffle and Peanut Butter Jelly Time before I record myself doing it. This means I have to watch The Goonies and stare at every rendition of PBJT available on YouTube over the next few days. I want to thank everyone who donated, even if you only gave me a few bucks. You helped me a lot during a difficult time and I appreciate that. I’ve got all sorts of other things in works, such as stories with characters based on folks who donated, and the editing process is still underway. Once I finish this next edit (and then one more major pass with a friend), I will get the ebook compiled and sent to everyone who donated $10 or more. My hope is to have all of these things done before my birthday (Oct. 6th), and at the very least, in the event that I get run over by a bus or aliens abduct me and put me behind, it will be finished before the year is out. If the project is delayed until the end of the year, I will make up for it by doing something more for you all (free fiction, another embarrassing video, or whatever you’d like). I don’t want it to be delayed that far out, but life has been giving me whatever the hell it wants at the moment, so it’s always possible. Anywho! Have a good one!
Technically the following images from my chalkboard-based lecture today include an essay on Slaughterhouse Five by Arnold Edelstein. You’ll need to scroll through the previous four images from my last post, but you all can handle that, right? Feel free to leave any comments if you find these amusing or have questions. Teaching Vonnegut has been a fascinating and educational experience. I can’t wait to teach it again! American Lit (4081) Chalkboard Wonders Note: I’m going to call these posts the American Lit Chalkboard Wonders (after the album), since future chalkboard images will have nothing to do with Vonnegut.
The title says it all. This week’s episode is an interview with Stina Leicht, author of Of Blood and Honey from Night Shade Books. The book is well worth a read, by the way. I’ll post a review of it here when I get a chance. Here’s the interview. I hope you enjoy it!
The chapter is late and I’m feeling like crap about it. Life is not being kind to me as of late, what with having to put one of my leopard geckos down, starting up school and teaching, and other similar issues. But it’s here and I’m going to get my crap together and put myself on a regular schedule. The fourteenth chapter finds James and his companions (Pea and Darl) at the far edges of Arlin City, inches from escaping. But escaping weights heavily upon James…and I’ll leave it at that so you’ll have something to look forward to! Chapter Fourteen — Download (MP3) Thanks for listening. Please give WISB a review on iTunes! (Don’t forget to check out what I’ve done to sweeten the pot for anyone who donates to the project. Plenty of free things are available, from ebooks, paperbacks, random letters from me, and even a character written about you into the world of WISB. Please consider donating!) (All podcast chapters will be listed on the Podcast page.)
The following comment was left on John Ottinger’s Grasping For the Wind. Specifically, I left it on a guest post by R. L. Copple entitled “Wading Through the Crap,” which is an interesting take on the “there will be so much crap” anti-self-publishing argument. I take some issue with the logic, even if I now also take issue with the anti-SP argument being refuted, but the post is interesting enough to check out on your own (which I expect you all to do; go on, leave some comments!) Here’s what I had to say: This post is just as riddled with fallacies, which is ironic when you argue that the post linked at the start is equally plagued by them. Two examples: 1. You say: “Now let’s say with the explosion of indie books, it adds 20,000 new titles to the pile each year, giving the reader a total of 30,000 new books to browse through. And let’s say the average reader will only like 2% of those books, meaning among those 20,000 indie books, they would have 400 books they would enjoy reading if they came across them. That means among the 30,000 books they could wade through, there would be 900 they would pick up if they came across them, which amounts to a 3% chance of finding a book they like instead of 5%. If that scenario was true, it would mean it grew a tad harder to find a book the reader likes, but only by 2%.” While a 2% decrease seems minor, in the grand scheme of book “finding,” it’s not. When you take into account the time, energy, and other variables that go into book “finding,” that 2% decrease is substantial, particularly since it represents a 40% reduction in possibility. That’s nothing to scoff at. You’re using numerical trickery here to suggest something that isn’t such a big deal, but you leave out the primary thing that makes readers very unlikely to buy anything whatsoever: wasting their time. Even a 1% (or 20%) decrease would put off a substantial number of readers who simply can’t be bothered to put in the extra effort to find something they may or may not like (which, let’s face it, even when you take into account the various ways readers come to books, and, thus, choose them, that doesn’t include the time and effort it takes for that reader to actually discover if they got the right book; this implies that your model must take into account the percentage of occurrences in which a reader found a book, but discovered upon reading that it wasn’t to their liking — contrary to popular belief in self-publishing circles, most readers aren’t willing to read huge previews and the like; if you’re lucky, they’ll read a page or two, which explains why publishers are so adamant about those first few pages, even today). 2. You spend a lot of time talking about slush piles and how readers see the demise of the slush pile as something good for them, since it means there will be more good books to find. The problem with this is that you earlier argue that the publication form is one of the least relevant methods by which readers come to books, and, thus, a direct contradiction of your earlier sentiments. Now, setting aside the lack of statistical support for most of what we’re talking about (nobody really knows how many readers care about the publisher and how many don’t, etc. only anecdotal evidence that suggests they avoid SPed books in bookstores), you still have the problem here of turning readers into slush readers. I hate everything to do with this concept, because the moment you make it my job as a reader to do a job other people should be doing and getting paid for (publishers, reviewers, editors, and related people, some of which may be related to non-traditional publishing models) is the moment you take all the joy out of reading, after which I’ll simply stop buying books. I’m not kidding. I will stop buying books completely, with the exception of things printed from the previous era of publishing. I have no incentive as a reader to participate in a system that wants me to do extra effort to find what I want. Most other markets don’t do this to me; in reality, most other markets have made it *easier* for me to find what I want to consume (think super stores, malls, online music stores with really good recommendation features, online music sites for streaming music, etc. etc etc etc etc etc). Yet it’s only in the book publishing world that we talk about making the consumer the worker. I wouldn’t be going out on a limb if I said a lot of readers who have recently come to routine reading would be equally inclined to leave the whole thing behind. Easy access isn’t necessarily a good thing (at least, it comes with consequences). It’s all about coupling easy access with tools that help the consumer find what they want without creating additional effort. The fact that SPers (and indies, trads, and other publishing models) are talking about a future which makes the consumer an unpaid intern is the most bizarre kind of archaic logic to me… Don’t tell me what you think on this post, though. Go respond to me and Mr. Copple on John’s blog. It’s an interesting discussion to have, methinks, even if I have made similar arguments elsewhere on this blog.
