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Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

priceonomics.com

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Re: Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

#91

I know my karma is going to get nuked, but as a datapoint to the authors of Priceonomics: I'll never buy a book with a curseword in the title. It screams "amateur hour". EDIT: Maybe you can use that topic for an upcoming blog post.

I agree, and I got nuked as well, but I'm still going to express my opinion. It seems to me that it's possible to come up with a creative title to draw people in without resorting to profanity. Profanity has shock value but also will turn off some people, so it's risky and possibly counter-productive.

Re: Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

#92
post #75

I guess when you can't think of a creative title, just use a profanity. I don't want my 9-year-old to be exposed to this kind of language either on the coffee table or on the tablet, so I won't be buying the book. Could you put out a PG-rated version for those of us prudish and old-fashioned types?

Or, you know, when your 9-year-old asks you "Papa(Mama), what is 'bullshit'?" You could explain that it does not literally means cattle manure, is a strong and rude expression sometimes used by people, and it's best to avoid that kind of expression in conversation. Either you kid will learn the word from you (instead of their peers) and gain more knowledge, or they'll just mentally shrug and think "What the _, I'm ni…

I'm surprised at all the somewhat naive and pseudo-street-wise responses to what I consider a common sense stance.

Of course, I know that my child is being exposed to this kind of language in the schoolyard and in the media. She's heard me accidentally say it in earshot a few times, for Pete's sake.

I just consider it a coarse and low class way of expressing oneself. I know she'll eventually be teaching me swear words I've never even heard. I know she'll privately be speaking that way amongst her friends and peers. I know it's in literature and essays that she'll be reading.

I just find it distasteful to hear a young child speak that way, and I find it offensive to hear an adult talk that way in front of a young child. It's how I was raised, how nearly everyone in my generation was raised.

Look, if one of these kids, who thinks it's cool to put words like "Fuck" and "Bullshit" in the title of a blog or e-book, were to walk into a five star restaurant that requires fancy attire and start dropping the F-bomb, they'd be asked to leave or at a minimum generate some annoyance and disruption.

But they wouldn't speak that way in a five star restaurant, nor would they walk into a day care center and speak that way, nor would they curse in front of a neighbor's young children. Why? Because they know better. They know that society, even today, does not condone that kind of language around young children.

Many, if not most, parents would disapprove to the point of threatening with violence someone who was clueless enough to curse in front of their children. At a minimum, parents would whisk their children away and shun such a person as a clueless jerk or someone with mental problems.

If the authors of the book think they're being cute by using bullshit in the title, they're wrong. They're just resorting to a cheap trick that may trigger the "so what, that's how everyone talks" type of reaction in some, but will trigger the equally legitimate "Get that off my screen!" reaction in others.

Re: Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

#93

I guess when you can't think of a creative title, just use a profanity. I don't want my 9-year-old to be exposed to this kind of language either on the coffee table or on the tablet, so I won't be buying the book. Could you put out a PG-rated version for those of us prudish and old-fashioned types?

A simple solution is to not leave this book out for your 9-year-old (or realize your 9-year-old really isn't interested). You can't seriously expect them to release a PG alternative.

I don't want it in my kindle library where she might see it.

The simplest solution is to not acquire the book.

Re: Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This model isn't that new. Webcomics and Tumblrs have been putting out coffee table books for years.

I guess what I find new is the how easy it has become to print stuff these days, e.g. via peecho.com or lulu.com. I'm all for eBooks, but there is something about the printed book that makes me more likely to want to pay for it... Could you show me examples of Webcomics and/or Webcomics for sale? Are they in print or PDF? I'd be interested to check their pricing models.

TopatoCo sells books and other merchandise from webcomics artists: http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=...

Some of these, like the xkcd and the DinosaurComics books, are repackaged webcomics, some of those are 'originals' that didn't appear online before.

The publisher varies between books - the xkcd book for example was published by breadpig: http://breadpig.com/products/xkcd-volume-0

Re: Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

#95
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there, I work at Priceonomics. Thanks for the suggestions. We'll probably do a blog post about our marketing strategy of this book, but I wanted to address your point that the book had reviews as soon as it launched on Amazon. How is that even possible? Many people had advanced copies of various drafts of the book. When the book went live this morning we emailed all of them letting them know it was up there. Hence…

Ah, yes, the amazon page went live this morning. That makes sense. You may have wanted to curate, or to pull out some specific talking points for your reviewers. I think good good reviews are better than bad good reviews. But I understand the challenge. As to the pricing info. I like this post, though it's old and prices may have changed -- http://evilgeniuschronicles.org/2011/01/12/ebook-pricing-vs-... Here are some…

"you don't actually use 'stories' to explain concepts. You use data."

In fairness, some of the Priceonomics posts are more overtly "story" driven, and even a fair number of the data-driven pieces involve interesting stories as framing devices. Using data to explain and analyze is the primary mission, but presenting that analysis in a compelling way is at least half the battle.

I have been fortunate enough to have written a few pieces for the Priceonomics blog. I don't speak for the company, and my impressions are my own $0.02... But if anything, my experience was that they'd ask me to tone myself down if I was getting too dry, too wonky, or too data-centric. The data needs to be there, as it needs to ground the analysis. But there should be a story behind it, too.

A big reason why Priceonomics' blog is so good is that it's not just a data dump. The team there has a very strong editorial focus. Believe me; there were some articles I wrote where we'd hop in a Google Doc and collaboratively edit for days and days on end, searching for the right narrative thread. Or the right way to phrase something. Or the best way to break wonky topics into approachable pieces, while still maintaining intellectual depth. I'd consider their editorial process to be at least as rigorous as that of any national publication I've written for.

"Questioning everything" seems a little much; I'd agree. It's not so much about "questioning everything" as it is peeling back the layers, and understanding why certain things are the way they are. Oftentimes, peeling back the layers of an industry -- diamonds, wine, etc. -- reveals a healthy amount of bullshit. Hence, "X is bullshit" is a semi-recurring theme in the blog. The beauty of it, IMO, is not just calling out bullshit -- but using it as the starting point, and explaining how bullshit works in specific contexts, and why it exists.

Re: Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

#96
post #40

It seems like the Amazon reviews might be stacked. There certainly are a ton of them popping up at 10 am this morning. Plus you can always tell a sock puppet review when they don't actually mention content and say things like "Greatest Book Evah" instead. I know it's important to appear that the book is a proven reading experience, and reviews are the essential way to do that, but fake/paid/friend reviews just raise…

Hi there, I work at Priceonomics. Thanks for the suggestions. We'll probably do a blog post about our marketing strategy of this book, but I wanted to address your point that the book had reviews as soon as it launched on Amazon. How is that even possible? Many people had advanced copies of various drafts of the book. When the book went live this morning we emailed all of them letting them know it was up there. Hence…

> Many people had advanced copies of various drafts of the book

Seems like you cherry-picked who got the advanced copies...

Re: Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

#97

I know my karma is going to get nuked, but as a datapoint to the authors of Priceonomics: I'll never buy a book with a curseword in the title. It screams "amateur hour". EDIT: Maybe you can use that topic for an upcoming blog post.

I agree with you somewhat that using curse words in book titles can be amateurish, like clickbait in the physical world.

PS the reason you're being downvoted is most likely because you prefaced your comment with "I know my karma is going to get nuked, but...". That's very Redditesque and is usually not tolerated.

Re: Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

#98

I wouldn't have said it in so much words, but the authors are onto an important new business model: free web stuff and sell books The key point is that content in the form of a book (a unit of meaningful discourse) can be productized and offered in a sidebar. Instead of advertisements that pay micro cents per impression, why not offer a book and make 40% profit on print books and 97% profit on eBooks sold? I'm not su…

> an important new business model

Nothing new in that business model. I have seen several popular bloggers do the exact same thing way before this initiative. That's natural : build your audience through a free service, then monetize goods targeted to this audience.

Re: Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

#99
post #86
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I am very much on the side of "If it's publicly available info, it's free to access and repackage" but a lot of companies and judges feel otherwise.

Can you list some specific examples of companies to whom this pertains? By that I mean companies who think their data shouldn't be publicly available and also fail to place a no-crawl flag in their robots.txt.

Well, a robots.txt (much like an implicit TOS/EULA that nobody ever sees nor agrees to) isn't exactly legally binding.

Yelp, LinkedIn, and Craigslist are examples that have taken legal action recently against other entities scraping and re-purposing the data.

Re: Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

#100
post #33

Just did an impulsive amazon checkout. All this frictionless online shopping is getting dangerous. HackNews -> Amazon -> Paypal -> Gmail (confirmation) in less then 1 minute.

One-click buy is literally scary. I bought several books for Kindle on impulse this way. "Oh, what an interesting book, I'd read it. Hmm... [creditCard -= $14;]".
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