21–30 of 57 posts
Slightly meta - Just a recommendation on your "pitch". When you are trying to get someone to buy something using the word "try" makes you sound less serious. I understand you're trying to be humble, but confidence in your work will get you more book sales. Be confident and people will take you more seriously. That being said...the book looks interesting! Grattis for shipping.
That said, the idea of Leanpub is to let authors write lean. Writing lean isn't an excuse for half-baked scholarship, but it is an opportunity to publish an "MVP" book and iterate from there. To me, that's what the author is trying to do here, and he should be applauded for that effort and gumption.
This is a huge undertaking, and for that reason alone, I'm intrigued. I wish the minimum price weren't as high as it is (probably another big blip on the skepticism radar), but I would love to check it out.
Slightly meta - Just a recommendation on your "pitch". When you are trying to get someone to buy something using the word "try" makes you sound less serious. I understand you're trying to be humble, but confidence in your work will get you more book sales. Be confident and people will take you more seriously. That being said...the book looks interesting! Grattis for shipping.
Scanning through the comments, I'm noticing a bit of skepticism over the "legitimacy" of this work. To a large extent, that's probably fair: people have every right to be skeptical of anything calling itself a biography. The rigor of scholarship, access, and sourcing involved in writing a competent biography is a high hurdle to clear. That said, the idea of Leanpub is to let authors write lean. Writing lean isn't an…
The only real way to do that is by interviewing people and drawing out interesting details that haven't been published yet (for a dead person, you might draw from a recently-discovered journal) In this case, the author did neither. Which is not to say this biography is bad, but the price should reflect that
1. Is this biography in any way vetted by Elon Musk or anyone who has first-hand knowledge of events described here?
2. If not, then how is this anything more than anec-data, wikipedia and googling thrown together in a fantasy narrative?
3. If it is not vouchsafed by the principal, real, living person about whom this book claims to be about, then perhaps a disclaimer about it being a work of fiction should be on the cover itself...
Apologies from the get go for my negative-sounding questions, but the skeptic in me wonders: 1. Is this biography in any way vetted by Elon Musk or anyone who has first-hand knowledge of events described here? 2. If not, then how is this anything more than anec-data, wikipedia and googling thrown together in a fantasy narrative? 3. If it is not vouchsafed by the principal, real, living person about whom this book cla…
Which is not to say that all unauthorized biographies are automatically great, just that you should evaluate them based on the quality of the author's research rather than just on whether or not they've been authorized by the subject.
Apologies from the get go for my negative-sounding questions, but the skeptic in me wonders: 1. Is this biography in any way vetted by Elon Musk or anyone who has first-hand knowledge of events described here? 2. If not, then how is this anything more than anec-data, wikipedia and googling thrown together in a fantasy narrative? 3. If it is not vouchsafed by the principal, real, living person about whom this book cla…