Re: Last chapter of my book
Subject: Re: Last chapter of my book
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 10/3/09, 22:33
To: "Sterling & Ross Publishers" <drew@sterlingandross.com>

I like the concept, though it could use a little tweaking. And it would be great if we could get the whole title on the cover, as I think it will really be an attention-getter and more importantly, get across that this is going to be something of an unconventional and humorous take on the subject, which will appeal, in my experience, to a lot of people.

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 10:28 PM, Sterling & Ross Publishers <drew@sterlingandross.com> wrote:

Re The cover. It is attached. It was a bit of a rush job as we had one day to get it ready for the catalog (the internal sales cat.) so let me know what you think as I’m thinking we’re going to change it. But I think it’s pretty cool for the time being.

 

 

Re Taibbi- I understand. The link I sent is about an anonymous blogger who broke a big story (albeit it financial) which was picked up by the mainstream press, and then the MSM started trying to dig into who this blogger was, taking attention away from the sunlight this blogger was shining and toward silly personal stuff. Taibbi raises the issue about what constitutes a “journalist” – it’s not someone who is perfectly ‘normal’ and pleasant and nice, but someone who is incorrigibly off kilter and a little nuts with all kinds of hangups and jealousies. But it’s the part about going after bloggers that I thought was relevant to what you’re working on.

Though with that said, let’s try not to make this a ‘bloggers are people too’ book/section because oftentimes, they’re not. For every TalkingPointsMemo there are 30,000 asshats in PJ’s and another 10,000 thinking adults who do nothing but link to TPM with their two sentences added. There are probably 50 bloggers who could be considered journalists, another 2,000 who could replace the entire WaPo and NYTimes Op-Ed pages, and the rest are useless. IMHO.   

 

Drew Nederpelt
Sterling & Ross Publishers
115 W. 29th St., New York, NY 10001
212 244 2084, ex.114
www.SterlingandRoss.com

From: Barrett Brown [mailto:barriticus@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2009 10:10 PM


To: Sterling & Ross Publishers
Subject: Re: Last chapter of my book

 

No, but I want to see it! Send the cover along.

I haven't read Taibbi lately because he's doing economics and Wall Street and whatnot these days. I'm sure he does it well, but I can't stand those subjects unless there's some connection to my various eccentric pet issues.

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 10:07 PM, Sterling & Ross Publishers <drew@sterlingandross.com> wrote:

“It might merit a brief discussion, at the very least, towards the end of the book when I try to tie everything together and propose a solution.”   Absolutely.

Did you see the mock up cover we did for your book?

Drew Nederpelt
Sterling & Ross Publishers
115 W. 29th St., New York, NY 10001
212 244 2084, ex.114
www.SterlingandRoss.com

From: Barrett Brown [mailto:barriticus@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2009 9:36 PM
To: Sterling & Ross Publishers
Subject: Re: Last chapter of my book

 

Well, I'll have a chance to try out the idea over the next few days as the piece goes up on True/Slant and HuffPo, so we might be able to see if there's anything worth discussing in the book here. Plus, I probably didn't explain very well what it is that I mean; I was going to tie in the theme of pundits and their sort of invincibility to what we sometimes see with bloggers and their readers going after one of them. Sort of a response to the Lee Siegel thing in which he was attacked by blog swarms, started sockpuppeting in his own defense, was caught and fired by The New Republic, and then wrote a book about how everyone was mean to him (although supposedly being an examination of the blogosphere and what it means for discourse). It might merit a brief discussion, at the very least, towards the end of the book when I try to tie everything together and propose a solution.

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 9:25 PM, Sterling & Ross Publishers <drew@sterlingandross.com> wrote:

Yeah I read that—don’t quite understand it and don’t quite think it’s going to resonate with the reading public. IMHO>

 

Drew Nederpelt
Sterling & Ross Publishers
115 W. 29th St., New York, NY 10001
212 244 2084, ex.114
www.SterlingandRoss.com

From: Barrett Brown [mailto:barriticus@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2009 4:59 AM
To: Sterling & Ross Publishers
Subject: Last chapter of my book

 

... will be about the manner in which false ideas are given new life by way of dishonest blogs, which provide positive feedback to dishonest arguments (that's a simplified version, anyway). Much of the chapter will probably center around this whole affair whereby I today broke this conservative blogger's spirit:

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2009/10/03/regarding-jeff-goldstein-and-protein-wisdom/