To both, have either of you read my book for comparison?
Alice, Yes, we feel the same way on multiple fronts. I still don’t understand why certain decisions were made that reduced some easy wins. Oh well, we shall see.
yams, That’s true that it’s better, but there is SO much further it could have gone. Actually, I think 6-8000 copies can be largely driven by the community (funding book groups) and there was such an institutional push that that should help. The concern is that they get the sales but it’s the wrong book. So the thing one actually wants—the reader to now be aware/engaged, happens less compared to something else. Perhaps it will polarize in bad ways… or good ways. Experiment indeed.
Can’t discuss too much about current sales numbers, mostly because nobody really has numbers that are very up to date, but I was starting with a similar baseline for community sales, and then subtracting that from our current floor estimate to suggest there’s a chance it’s getting traction; a second wave will be more telling, the conversation will be more telling, but the first filter is ‘get it in people’s hands’, and so we at least have a chance to see how those other steps will go.
In both this and other reviews, people have their theory of What Will Work. Darren McKee writing a book (unfortunately) does not appear to have worked (for reasons that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the book’s quality, or even with Darren’s sense of what works for the public; I haven’t read it). Nate and Eliezer wrote a book, and we will get feedback on how well that works in the near future (independent of anyone’s subjective sense of what the public responds to, which seems to be a crux for many of the negative reviews on LW).
I’m just highlighting that we all have guesses about what works here, but they are in fact guesses, and most of what this review tells me is ‘Darren’s guess is different from Nate’s’, and not ‘Nate was wrong.’ That some people agree with you would be some evidence, if we didn’t already strongly predict that a bunch of people would have takes like this.
Oh yes, guesses all over the place. And very difficult to meaningfully arbitrate.
(FYI, my opinion is that mine hasn’t reached more people for several reasons, such as not having name recognition, existing larger following, and institutional support. But, whenever some reads it, they seem to really like it.)
To both, have either of you read my book for comparison?
Alice,
Yes, we feel the same way on multiple fronts. I still don’t understand why certain decisions were made that reduced some easy wins. Oh well, we shall see.
yams,
That’s true that it’s better, but there is SO much further it could have gone.
Actually, I think 6-8000 copies can be largely driven by the community (funding book groups) and there was such an institutional push that that should help.
The concern is that they get the sales but it’s the wrong book. So the thing one actually wants—the reader to now be aware/engaged, happens less compared to something else. Perhaps it will polarize in bad ways… or good ways. Experiment indeed.
Can’t discuss too much about current sales numbers, mostly because nobody really has numbers that are very up to date, but I was starting with a similar baseline for community sales, and then subtracting that from our current floor estimate to suggest there’s a chance it’s getting traction; a second wave will be more telling, the conversation will be more telling, but the first filter is ‘get it in people’s hands’, and so we at least have a chance to see how those other steps will go.
In both this and other reviews, people have their theory of What Will Work. Darren McKee writing a book (unfortunately) does not appear to have worked (for reasons that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the book’s quality, or even with Darren’s sense of what works for the public; I haven’t read it). Nate and Eliezer wrote a book, and we will get feedback on how well that works in the near future (independent of anyone’s subjective sense of what the public responds to, which seems to be a crux for many of the negative reviews on LW).
I’m just highlighting that we all have guesses about what works here, but they are in fact guesses, and most of what this review tells me is ‘Darren’s guess is different from Nate’s’, and not ‘Nate was wrong.’ That some people agree with you would be some evidence, if we didn’t already strongly predict that a bunch of people would have takes like this.
Oh yes, guesses all over the place. And very difficult to meaningfully arbitrate.
(FYI, my opinion is that mine hasn’t reached more people for several reasons, such as not having name recognition, existing larger following, and institutional support.
But, whenever some reads it, they seem to really like it.)