I’ve been hearing for twenty years that the future of the USofA belonged to “knowledge workers” – people who are visionaries who break outside of the usual boxes we live our lives in.
Sad that it’s all bullshit.
Home » 2007 (Page 7)
Yearly Archives: 2007
Local
All politics is local, but local politics is plain personal.
Yesterday was the culmination of our city council election cycle in Saint Paul. The great mystery of Democracy worked its way across our city as people did their part to confound all the expert predictions. In the end, it wasn’t all that surprising, with slate of DFL candidates of various kinds elected in all 7 wards and 3 of the 4 open School Board slots (DFL is the Minnesota term for Democrats, the result of a merger between the Democratic Party and the Farmer-Labor Party some 60 years ago).
Elections
Today is the day I answer mail.
I don’t have much to say, except thanks to all the people that voted for me in the Best Literature Blog contest at weblog awards:
Platforms
To be a successful writer, you have to first develop a “platform”. This is a publishing term for a loyal fan base that will buy just about anything you write. It only makes sense, in the way that cultivating regulars at a bar gives the owner a stable base to pay the mortgage from. What’s funny about it is that you have to have the “platform” before you are likely to publish a book. That’s why you see celebrity cookbooks and the like getting precedence over cookbooks from people who are professional chefs. Celebs always sell, at least at first.
Gutenburgistas
The internet is a writer’s medium. Anyone can publish absolutely anything, and therein lies part of the problem. In the warm glow of a CRT screen, what is it that you want to read? No matter how you twist and turn, no laptop will ever be as personally comfortable as a cold book. If we’re ever going to form a decent revolution out of this, as so many people want, a few more things need to fall into place.
I like to look at how the last publishing revolution went to get a few clues as to what we need.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 