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For months now, I’ve hinted about my new ventures on social media sites, while this site has again become dormant.
Now, I am at last ready to reveal all, or at least most of it:
MISCMEDIA.com relaunches in early June (the blog’s 20th birthday) with a new format. It will be a daily email newsletter, combining my skeptical-yet-sincere takes on the passing scene with headlines gathered from some three dozen local and regional news sources (all picked by hand, no RSS algorithms involved). I’ll be experimenting with ways to “monetize” it over the first few months.
The 20th anniversary of the book LOSER is coming in the autumn. It will be republished, in a third edition, with new and vastly improved scans of the original edition’s pages, plus a “whatever happened to…” addendum. I’m still working out the business side of it, which may include a crowdfunding campaign. Stay tuned.
frederick & nelson christmas display, via 'patricksmercy' on flickr and sandra bolton on pinterest
I’ve not been in the mood to make blog posts for the longest time.
The mood I’ve been in has been something other than the positive, assertive persona I’ve maintained in the blog and its print precursors over the years.
Besides, the ultra luxury-obsessed, alpha-techie ruled city that is much of modern-day Seattle is, in many aspects, so different from the funky, spunky, and, yes, grungy city I had known and loved. To truly cover the “pulse” of such a place, one would need to care about hedge-fund-financed dotcoms and hundred-dollar-a-plate bistros a helluva lot more than I ever will.
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And then there’s the matter of trying to convince people, even long standing acquaintances, that I need a job.
NOT an idea for something to write about, but a job.
NOT an unpaid writing “opportunity” for a commercial website, but a job.
It doesn’t have to be “writing” work, just paying work.
I’ve told this to everyone, sometimes repeatedly.
But some people I’d known for years didn’t get it.
They seemed to believe that, since they had identified me as “a writer,” all I needed was to “write” all the time.
(“Don’t worry about the money,” one dude sincerely exhorted me one evening, after I’d almost lost my second apartment in one year.)
The only way I thought I could convince these folks that I needed actual monetary income, not sub-minimum-wage (or, worse, “for the exposure”) freelance crap, was by ceasing to “be a writer.”
It didn’t really work. Either at convincing these well-meaning but ignorant folk, or at getting me a real for-the-money job. (I have gotten a long-term-temp, part-time dishwashing gig, but that’s it.)
So I’m quitting the quitting.
Actually, I have been posting on so-called “social media” sites all this time. I like the knowledge that someone’s at least reading my stuff when I post it there.
But the MISCmedia site, I promise for real this time, will be back in full force in Two Ought One Five.
I’ve got a major publishing project in the works (still), and a plan to revamp the site into a daily local news “aggregation” and commentary source (still).
But we’ll start the year, as we always have, with the mellifluous MISCmedia In/Out List, always the most accurate list of its type seen anywhere at any time.
And, as always, we need YOUR input to make it happen.
In the comments box below, please recommend what will become hotter and less-hot in the twelve months to come, in the fields of music, fashion, food/drink, the arts, architecture, socio-political trends, etc. etc.
The list’s simple rules, as always:
Good luck, and good predicting.
'he-man and she-ra: a christmas special,' part of the festivities at siff film center on xmas eve
And a dreadful sorry for not posting in the last 12 days.
What I’ve been up to: Not much. Just wallowing in the ol’ clinical depression again over my first mom-less Xmas, trying to figure out how the heck I’m gonna pay January’s rent.
(For those of you who came in late, I’m not independently wealthy despite the old rumors; a few little local photo books don’t earn anything near a decent living; and my eternal search for a little ol’ paying day job has gone nowhere slowly.)
But I have vowed to stay at it. And there will be new MISCmedia products in the new year.
And, as always, it’s the time of year for MISCmedia’s annual In/Out List, the only accurate guide to what will become hot and not-so-hot in the coming 12 months. Send in your suggestions now.
On with the accumulated random links:
from thelmagazine.com
There’s bad news today for the book snobs out there.
(You know, the droning turned-up-nose guys who love to whine that Nobody Reads Anymore, except of course for themselves and their own pure little subculture.)
Turns out, according to a study co-sponsored by two industry groups, book sales are actually up over the past three years!
Yes, even during this current economic blah-blah-blah!
Ebook sales have particularly exploded.
But regular dead-tree volumes are also up; except for mass market paperbacks (perhaps the most vulnerable category to the ebook revolution).
Adult fiction sales rose 8.8 percent from early ’08 to late ’10. Also doing well, according to the NYT story about the study: “Juvenile books, which include the current young-adult craze for paranormal and dystopian fiction….” (Good news for people who love bad news, to quote a Modest Mouse CD.)
Oh, as for that other commercial communications medium? You know, the medium that the book snobs call their sworn enemy?
The AP headline says it all: “Pay TV industry loses record number of subscribers.”
Has the above inspired you to get with the program, hop on the bandwagon, follow the fad, and start buying some more books for your very own?
I have a great little starter number, just for you.
The Seattle Times has affirmed something I’ve known personally for a while now.
The only jobs to be had in this town are for software programmers.
Can I learn to program at my stage of life?
And if so, any recommendations where/how?
And would it even be worth it?
I’d rather not go through a whole costly course of study, only to find the companies still want only to hire the young and/or already employed.
And I don’t want to study technologies that will cease to be in demand after I’ve started studying them.
As promised a week or so back, here is the second installment of Monetize Me!, my search for something to do for money. This installment is in the form of simple logical statements.
The things I do now don’t earn me a living income. But they’re the only things some of you know me for. I’m trying to find other (perhaps extremely “other”) things to do with my skills. Things that aren’t simply more of the same, because the same ain’t working for me.
This search for a new and/or improved career will be the topic of my newest category of web posts, Monetize Me!
Further details will show up over the next few days.
