books

The Somewhat Clogged Culture Pipeline

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Serdar had responded to my post that we have replaced culture with economics with one of his usual, thoughtful replies. He notes that our technocratic marketing has driven innovation from the marketplace and we are left with what sells, not what necessarily has value, and that to an extent we have a case of this mediocrity infecting us or becoming a kind of cultural pollution. However out of many of his ideas, one thing comes up I want to talk about: the role of The Pipeline.

The Pipeline is how Stuff Gets To Us. There are Pipelines for food, for clothes, and of course for Culture.

When I say The Pipeline, for the sake of this post, I’m talking the media system we have.

The Pipeline that we have are often built of foundations decades, or even centuries old. Publishing houses, radio stations, movie studios, etc. Huge companies and small companies, various suppliers and interests, and so forth came together to create the giant Culture Engine we have now. Some of it is very old, and it often plays it very safe.

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Cosplay And Fanart Books In Print!

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Focused Fandom: Cosplay, Costuming, and Careers and Focused Fandom: Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers are now in print!  Physical print.  The kind of print that  . . . well makes gift giving easier (which was one of the motivations).

You can get them here:

You’ll notice this isn’t on Lulu.  I wanted to give CreateSpace a try for these two.  I don’t like putting all of my eggs in one basket, but I figured I should give it a shot – and CreateSpace and Lulu share a lot of similar technologies and styles.

First of all, the files used are pretty much the same – a PDF.  My files were mostly compatible, and in fact the CreateSpace tool caught potential printing errors that Lulu doesn’t.  CreateSpace also provides a vastly superior preview function that simulates the physical book, both inside and outside – an impressive bit of technology.

Making a cover is less friendly – the easiest way is to simply do your own graphics and upload them – but that means measuring and setting up the entire cover if you want to do it yourself.  The other options aren’t as deep as Lulu’s.  This is one area of needed improvement.  Fortunately I could use my existing covers with a bit of scaling – but having to design the spine in to make a “wraparound” PDF took some work – you’re not going to do it without being at least basically experienced in making graphics.

The proofs came fast and were cheap, and were good quality, though twice I’ve gotten books via CreateSpace that seemed a bit beaten up.  Not sure if it was delivery or not.  I’ll keep an eye on that.

Now I have to consider if I want to split my time between the two or pick one.

But as for now – enjoy the books!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

I’m Starting To Think Like a Librarian . . .

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Over the last few years of moving, divorcing, cleaning, etc. I’ve cleaned out a lot of old books, videos, and more.  I am trying to keep things that are only truly meaningful, truly useful, and truly re-readable.  I’ve . . . succeeded reasonably well.

But as I think of purchasing new books, new videos, I find myself asking what I will do when I am done.  Do I keep them?  Sell them?  Gift them?  Will I reuse them?  Are they worth it?

This has me wondering what legacy I will leave in my life in the form of my own personal library.  I realized in fact that what I have is a personal library.

Each book, each DVD, each manga, each thing I place in it is not just for me – it’s for friends, relatives, and those to come.  When I am gone, it will be there.

This is also part of my motivation in turning my eBook only Focused Fandom books into print.  It’s about a solid legacy.

We should all think like Librarians.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.