[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I felt like what the early music fanzine people must have when record labels started sending them free preview stuff to review!

i'm happy to see your dedication is starting to pay off beyond sheer personal satisfaction and building an audience and being noticed by publishers, and i'd like to say this to your blog

 

[Severian]

Wow Rob. Congratulations, man! That's fucking incredibly cool. Seriously, you should feel very good about this. Uncorrected proofs, no less! Likely to be a collector's item at some point (it is supposed to be Moore's final work, and the man still commands a hell of an audience). So, double awesomeness for you!

[Severian]

Hey Rob, you wanna be my blog mentor? I all but abandoned by skattered, piss poor attempt at microblogging when I got a full time media job. I crawl back to it every so often for no good reason, and it's hilarious to me that my year of experience on the editorial staff of a newspaper has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to make me a better or more effective blogger. I managed to get better responses when I was doing it for fun, and to moderate the depression of being unemployed.

Teach me.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

republicans' and trump trollz twitter feeds.. this shit is epic good read

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Severian

Hey Rob, you wanna be my blog mentor? I all but abandoned by skattered, piss poor attempt at microblogging when I got a full time media job. I crawl back to it every so often for no good reason, and it's hilarious to me that my year of experience on the editorial staff of a newspaper has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to make me a better or more effective blogger. I managed to get better responses when I was doing it for fun, and to moderate the depression of being unemployed.

Teach me.

blogs are a fickle thing.. i have read some great blogs that have few followers, and seen some total crap with a huge following. is what it is, sort of a hit or miss thing but then again isn't that true of all art?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Severian

Hey Rob, you wanna be my blog mentor?

obviously i'm not rob, ha ha, but i'll tell you what i see in his blog

it's a labor of love. i don't know if he's actually got plans to dominate the world through it or some other ulterior motive, but it looks to me like he does it primarily because he likes it.

he's been writing this blog for years-- if he expected something in return other than the work itself, i think he would have quit ages ago.

having said that, he always promotes it-- not in a marketing bs kind of way but he just shares it. i remember once he announced here that people were reading him in a bunch of other countries and someone said those are probably just bots and don't get his hopes to high. i don't know if rob cared or not but he just kept going. good for him.

and i think you can see this in the writing. he's 100% enthusiastic about what he does. this is most refreshing in a media climate of infinite snark and everyone thinking "sarcastic" (not even understanding the word) equals smart.

[Rob Instigator]

I started writing the blog because I would talk peoiple's ears off about the book I just read and thy would tell me I was going over their heads and giving them too much information. My wife specifically! ha! She told me to write down my observations on what I read.

I have seen it grow. I only track "new" hits. Originally I was stoked to see 10 new hits a week from around the world. Now I get upwards of 100 hits a week. All for a blog reviewing books that no one gives a shit about.... ha!

It is tricky to begin, but once the ball is rolling, and you are writing about things you love, it becomes second nature.

I share the latest review on the book and here and on twitter but not a lot of actual marketing.

still, mine gets a good amount of traffic for an esoteric blog about paper books. I get a thrill out of seeing anew country listed in the "audience." Places like Belarus, Turks & Caicos, Malaysia, etc.


Thanks for checking it out guys...

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by Severian

How's BOTNS coming?

2/3 through Claw of Conciliator. Gonna read the whole book of new sun though before I post about it.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

2/3 through Claw of Conciliator. Gonna read the whole book of new sun though before I post about it.

That's the second book! You're still on the second book?! It's like 150 pages!

Ack!

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I started writing the blog because I would talk peoiple's ears off about the book I just read and thy would tell me I was going over their heads and giving them too much information. My wife specifically! ha! She told me to write down my observations on what I read.

I have seen it grow. I only track "new" hits. Originally I was stoked to see 10 new hits a week from around the world. Now I get upwards of 100 hits a week. All for a blog reviewing books that no one gives a shit about.... ha!

It is tricky to begin, but once the ball is rolling, and you are writing about things you love, it becomes second nature.

I share the latest review on the book and here and on twitter but not a lot of actual marketing.

still, mine gets a good amount of traffic for an esoteric blog about paper books. I get a thrill out of seeing anew country listed in the "audience." Places like Belarus, Turks & Caicos, Malaysia, etc.


Thanks for checking it out guys...

Yeah, I started mine because I'd do the same thing with my music talk. Nobody really wanted to hear it in my "real" life. Not even my girlfriend. But it's hard to talk to people about music when most people are kind of only passively into it. I, on the other hand, am downright fucking obsessive about it and always have been. Throw in the fact that I have such strong opinions about so many different types of music, and that half of the genres I listen to sound like shit to so many people, and it becomes extremely frustrating. I put a lot of work into it the first year, and got some nice responses, but I think I actually put too much time into it. I was letting things in my life lapse. So I backed off out of necessity, and because none of it was very good.

Meh.

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by Severian

That's the second book! You're still on the second book?! It's like 150 pages!

Ack!

The Cult of the Seer was 1300 pages man! That shit sucked up my reading time. fools here at UH would comment sarcastically about my "light lunch reading."

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

. All for a blog reviewing books that no one gives a shit about.... ha!

you just got me interested in the buckminster fuller about the great pirates and i downloaded the pdf last night

i've heard a lot about him in 60s stuff but then it's like he vanished

i believe he gets mentioned in the illuminatus trilogy yes? ah ah ha ha.

anyway, thanks!

[Rob Instigator]

Robert Anton Wilson and Vonnegut were the ones who would talk or mention R. Buckminster Fuller and his futuristic ideas. I have read two of his works. One is highly dense and, frankly, over my head, but the one you mention was more digestible.

Fuller was the man though. He was sick of the bullshit.

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Not telling you what to read/review but I'd love to see what you think of Thomas Ligotti's short stories, something like 'Last Feast of Harlequin' or 'The Frolic'. Couldn't find a PDF for either but they've got a pretty big cult following so I'm sure theyre out there. The guy's amazing. Very much a modern-day Machen/Lovecraft. 'Harlequin' will blow your mind.

Gonna look into Ligotti. Have never read any of his works.

[EVOLghost]

 

[Rob Instigator]

Finished this the other day. Love it.

 

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

The Cult of the Seer was 1300 pages man! That shit sucked up my reading time. fools here at UH would comment sarcastically about my "light lunch reading."

You know, you'd be done with all the BOTNS books by now if you'd just read them instead of veering off into other things and turning each novella into a multiple month undertaking.

...

Just saying. Great way to avoid letting other books get in the way of the books you're reading is to finish the what you're reading before you start on anything else.

How can you be as absorbed by the story as you say you are, and still allow a freaking mushroom picking guide to distract you from finishing it?

START DOING WHAT I THINK YOU SHOULD BE DOING!!!!

[Rob Instigator]

fiction is secondary to me.

I am a non-fiction reader mostly. Fiction I can take or leave, drop it off, and pick it up, no biggie. Made up shit doesn't affect me as much as actual data.

I LOVE MYCOLOGY

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

fiction is secondary to me.

I am a non-fiction reader mostly. Fiction I can take or leave, drop it off, and pick it up, no biggie. Made up shit doesn't affect me as much as actual data.

That's all well and good. I get that. I have a massive (truly, just gargantuan) collection of science books myself. They don't even need to be relevant for me to read them.

But I thought you were going to read this thing straight through. Remember, I've only ever managed to get ONE person to read BOTNS in full. It would just be super cool to hear your thought on it, and see it reviewed in full on your blog. Really, you're still in the story's embryonic stage. So.. I WANT!

[evollove]

The boss's autobiography. I would consider myself merely a casual fan but this book is the shit. Wise and actually quite funny. A cliche but its true I couldn't put it down. Tore through 200 pages after dinner last night.