About a year ago I started to write ‘a book’ with a working title of ‘Information Metaphysics’, about the essential nature of this thing called ‘information’ that we all think we understand, until we think about it more. That is still a work in progress.
I deliberately allowed myself to be distracted, to explore my notion of creativity and to write another book about the role of co-incidence in life while exploring a painting and a poem of the same name. At some point I ran aground in shallow water and started to worry that I was failing to demonstrate any progress towards ever earning any income from writing.
In the corner, I had a stack of ideas that didn’t fit in with my evolving concepts for either book. I came up with the idea of writing up each of these ideas, as you might a blog post, and Lean publishing them, regularly in an online portfolio. People would be able to download a sample, then if they liked it, effectively subscribe, at a low price point (US $5,) for all further instalments ever. This would partially fund my extravagant life-style of black coffee and cheese sandwiches, while I completed my main book. [ If you are a regular reader of this blog , at this point please think of yourself as EMI rejecting the Beatles, or perhaps sacking The Sex Pistols. ]
One of the main advantages of Agile and Lean development (I had planned to explain what the differences are) is that something that is bound to fail, fails quickly, with minimal damage. This morning I accepted that my experiment has not worked and ‘unpublished’ my book “Finds & Thinks”. There is apparently no market for my kind of cheap, concept-culture, when people can see as much free stuff as they have time to read, watch or listen to without having to think at all. You might wish to Pinterest this post so you can forget about what you’ve done.
Of course, I may just be rubbish at thinking and writing but I prefer to think it is an early warning sign that Free culture isn’t working for those who come up with new ideas. Which, I think, is about what Iggy Pop said in his BBC John Peel Lecture.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lcj6z (only available for 14 days)
I might even get a job. The Man pays better. If you see him, tell him I’m waiting. But if he’s late, I may have completed my solution to intertwingularity. If you don’t know what it is, look it up. It was going to be in the $5 book.
On The Outside 