If you want to know what’s happening at the sharp end of digital publication and new ideas about the relationships between authors and their readers – do yourself a favour and listen to what he has to say.
Context: Further Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century, my second essay collection, is now officially available from Tachyon Books, and in finer bookstores everywhere. It features an introduction by the estimable Tim O’Reilly, as well as a walloping 44 essays that were previously published in various magazines, newspapers and websites. As with my other books, the whole text is available as a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA download for your remixing pleasure. I’m also in search of libraries and school that would like free copies of the book sent to them by donors.
From Tim’s introduction:
Edwin Schlossberg once said “The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.” And oh, how we need that skill today!In times of transition and upheaval, we are literally “off the map” of past experience that is our normal guide to what to expect and how to think about it. It’s at times like these that we need context-setters to shape how we understand and think about the changes facing us.
It was clear from the first that Cory Doctorow is one of the great context-setters of our generation, helping us all to understand the implications of the technology being unleashed around us. We are fortunate that unlike many who practice this trade, who look backward
at recent changes, or forward only a year or two, Cory uses the power of story to frame what is going on in larger terms.
Here’s a reading of my essay Jack and the Internetstalk, just reprinted in my second essay collection Context: Further Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century.
Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com
John Taylor Williams is a full-time self-employed audio engineer, producer, composer, and sound designer. In his free time, he makes beer, jewelry, odd musical instruments and furniture. He likes to meditate, to read and to cook.
Context: Further Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century, my second essay collection, is now officially available from Tachyon Books, and in finer bookstores everywhere. It features an introduction by the estimable Tim O’Reilly, as well as a walloping 44 essays that were previously published in various magazines, newspapers and websites. As with my other books, the whole text is available as a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA download for your remixing pleasure. I’m also in search of libraries and school that would like free copies of the book sent to them by donors.
From Tim’s introduction:
Edwin Schlossberg once said “The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.” And oh, how we need that skill today!In times of transition and upheaval, we are literally “off the map” of past experience that is our normal guide to what to expect and how to think about it. It’s at times like these that we need context-setters to shape how we understand and think about the changes facing us.
It was clear from the first that Cory Doctorow is one of the great context-setters of our generation, helping us all to understand the implications of the technology being unleashed around us. We are fortunate that unlike many who practice this trade, who look backward
at recent changes, or forward only a year or two, Cory uses the power of story to frame what is going on in larger terms.
Daniel Krause interviewed me in Booklist about my DIY short story collection, With a Little Help, on the occasion of that book being listed in the Ingram catalog, which’ll make it easy for libraries to get copies.
Daniel Krause interviewed me in Booklist about my DIY short story collection, With a Little Help, on the occasion of that book being listed in the Ingram catalog, which’ll make it easy for libraries to get copies.
All time:
Income: $42,033.95
Outgo: $24,887.49
Net: $17,146.46
This reporting period:
Income: $2,231.23
- Special editions: $550.00 (all time $18,148.00)
- Lulu Paperbacks: $48.14 (all time $709.25)
- Amazon Paperbacks: $174.65 (all time $303.29)
- CDs: $0.00 (all time $54)
- Donations (43 donors): $568.44 (all time $2,791.17)
- Columns: $800.00 (all time $10,000.00)
- Print on Demand bookstore sales: $90.00 (all time $90.00)
Expenses: $167.88
Special editions: $93.00(all time $13,551.19)
- Special edition postage: $93.00
All editions: $40.00 (all time $4,734.88)
- LightningSource fees: $40.00
Donations:$34.88 (all time $188.31)
- Paypal fees: $34.88
Sales:
Hardcovers: 2 (all time 77)
Paperback (Leider cover): 10 (all time 50)
Paperback (Rucker cover): 2 (all time 38)
Paperback (Wu cover): 7 (all time 50)
Paperback (Defendini cover): 126 (all time 224)
MP3 CDs: 0 (all time 16)
Ogg CDs: 0 (all time 7)
Inventory:
- 7 hardcovers
- 50 review paperbacks
- 50 review boxes
- 50 review postage
- 10 paperbacks
Here’s a reading of my short story Brave Little Toaster, which was just published in TRSF, the inaugural science fiction anthology from MIT’s Tech Review. It’s a short-short story on the “Internet of Things” and what happens when it all goes wrong.
Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com
John Taylor Williams is a full-time self-employed audio engineer, producer, composer, and sound designer. In his free time, he makes beer, jewelry, odd musical instruments and furniture. He likes to meditate, to read and to cook.
Here’s the video from the talk I gave last week at the O’Reilly Strata conference on “big data” in NYC. The talk is called “Designing for Human Sensors, Not Human Barcodes,” and it talks about the philosophy underpinning the “privacy bargain” we strike online when we trade personal information for access to services.
Strata Summit 2011: Cory Doctorow, “Designing for Human Sensors, Not Human Barcodes”
Earlier this week, I gave a talk on the way that “Big Data” is underpinned with a kind of myth about how users trade privacy for services. Ciara Byrne from the NYT’s VentureBeat interviewed me afterwards about it. I think she did a really good job of condensing a hard, nuanced question into a brief and informative article.
