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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

This is my conversational account. For my work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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      Question for people who have written a book (qua book, not blog compilations etc): What was your book, and what opportunities and activities did it open up for you? How did it change your life? If you wrote more than 1, pick the one that changed your life the most.

      10 replies 6 retweets 21 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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      In my case, my only book qua book, Tempo, had following external effects: 1. Non-trivial initial $ spike and ongoing passive income 2. Getting connected to Boydian crowd 3. A few *really* dedicated readers 4. A couple of interesting talks 5. Road-trip excuse (biggest value)

      1 reply 2 retweets 19 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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      Very minor effect: it's something older not-very-online people latch on to as a way to peg me in their own minds and introduce me. Effectively a glorified business card. In this role, I doubt it actually gets read much. More a passport.

      1 reply 0 retweets 16 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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      I have strong internal reasons for wanting to write a second book that are enough to keep me at it, but frankly the external reasons are weak to non-existent for the kind of book I want to write. So wondering what I could do to make it have more interesting+unexpected impact.

      2 replies 1 retweet 9 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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      While I'd be very pleased with huge bestseller status etc. as an accidental side effect, it is not something that can motivate me, and not an objective I'm capable of solving for even if it did (for Halloween, I mocked up a "bestseller" type table of contents and scared myself)

      1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      I'm re-reading the pre-reads for my writing course to try and refactor my motivations for trying to write a 2nd book. I have this sense that while my motivation is at the right level as scalar potential energy, it's not vectored right, as kinetic energyhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1187878278222077953 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      Good pre-reads for courses should be so well-chosen that for someone who hasn't read them, they constitute 90% of the value of the course. Looking back, I think we actually hit that with the pre-reads for the longform course (the pre-reads page is open) https://ribbonfarm.teachable.com/courses/the-art-of-longform/lectures/2780745 …
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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      The null hypothesis ("why not just tweet it all out/write it as a blog series/capture it as a series of video lectures") is actually surprisingly strong, and it's going to take work to properly commit to the alt hypothesis ("this is demanding to be a book").

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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      It doesn't help that a couple of Very Famous and Important People I know, when I described the project to them, wondered why I didn't just write it as a series of blog posts or videos. Good question. I don't yet have a good answer. I need one.

      2 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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      Hence the OP question. I genuinely want to know what sorts of interesting+unexpected external effects might result specifically from a book form factor. No, not media coverage, hobnobbing with glitterati etc (based on small tastes I've had, those are active demotivators for me)

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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      One of the effects of being an internet-native writer, with enough success to foster a degree of arrogance, is that "book" motivations that work for trad writers don't work for you. You already know that many of the rewards of book-writing are better realized through blogs etc.

      5:43 PM - 25 Oct 2019
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      • nina allchurch Buster Benson Rahul Ramchandani Symora ꙮ Gene Linetsky
      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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          Almost any specific external effect or outcome of a book I can bring myself to care about, I can immediately think of like 6 better ways to achieve through much easier and more fun ways through blog posts etc. A book is usually the worst medium for most kinds of actual impact.

          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Oct 2019
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          The biggest internal reason to try and write a book is to challenge yourself to hunt down a much larger idea than social media allows. Books allow you to aim for intellectual outer space. At the moment, social media only allows you to achieve low-altitude atmospheric flight.

          5 replies 2 retweets 16 likes
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        4. End of conversation

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