Now Reading: 'The Revenge of Analog'

Here’s (appropriately or not) an AI summary of my thoughts on this book.

The transcript discusses the book “The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter” by David Sax, emphasizing its importance for creators in the context of a print revolution. The speaker highlights the resurgence of analog mediums such as vinyl, paper, film, and board games, as detailed in the book’s chapters. The narrative critiques reliance on digital platforms like Amazon, suggesting that true innovation in storytelling comes from traditional methods rather than technology [like me, for instance]. The speaker also touches on the challenges faced by authors in the publishing industry, including issues with book returns and the financial implications for self-published authors [and the fact that everything keeps changing so fast, you have to be a computer to keep up]. The overall message encourages readers to explore opportunities beyond digital platforms and to engage with the tangible world [whatever the fuck that is].

And now … my thoughts about this awesome book (Spoiler alert! Love it. Obviously.)

Hi everyone. This is not really a review so much as a heads up on a review maybe. I hope I can finish this before it’s due at the library. The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter by David Sax. This is an excellent book and everybody who is a creator should be reading this book, because it’s coming folks. The print revolution is here. It is coming and it is going to be quite a time for people who have not adapted to that, who continue to rely on things like Amazon and whatever else is out there, Substack or what have you for success. When you rely on algorithms for success, you won’t get what you need really. I mean, I am a case in point. What I should do really is just go through the whole horrible mess that happened to me from 2012 on, after I said no to Amazon’s exclusivity.

I should write all about that and put it in a book and send it to a publisher and say, “Here, do you believe me? Are you behind me on this? Are you willing to publish this?” I would really love to see that. I already have a book. It’s on Kobo and my Kobo is dead now, so I have to wait till I get a new Kobo to read it. But it’s written by a bookstore owner and he has his own take on Amazon and it’s not good. Okay. Enough about Amazon, but it does get mentioned in this book, needless to say, which has such awesome chapters as The Revenge of Vinyl. Vinyl is coming back, has come back. The Revenge of Paper. Paper. The Revenge of Film. There are people who actually make movies on film now. Even today. The Revenge of Board Games.

I’m just reading you chapter names here. The Revenge of Analog Ideas, starting with … The Revenge of Print. There is such cool stuff in this book. You have got to read this thing. This is fantastic stuff. It’s gold. It is gold, I’m telling you. There’s gold in them thar books. Eventually, it may take a while, but the revolution is coming, folks. So get ready for it. It’s been here, really. It’s never left. Print has always been here. Print will always be here, I think. Now, my speculations are as good as anybody’s. I do not pretend to be a forecaster of trends or anything else because I don’t believe half the shit I hear forecasted. So I’m not going to go there, but I will say that I think print is the most reliable form of communication there is. You can’t hack it. Once it’s there, it’s there.

You can come out with a new edition, but this will always be just as it is, short of going through and marking things out with a very, very dark marker. But yeah, I’ve done that actually with books, with other books. Not this one, of course, because it’s from the library. And I wouldn’t see the point. I won’t tell you about what we did to our Nancy Drew books. Boy, we had fun with those, my sister and I. Anyway, having said that, print lives as does vinyl records, as do many things that people can touch, which also leads to the revenge of retail. And yes, we talk about the bookstore and the truth behind the bookstore. Some of them not so pretty. Not so pretty. And the truth about publishing, not so pretty. The publishers basically had the same kind of stranglehold over the bookstores according to this, had this kind of influence on them.

You will carry this book and we want these copies. And I don’t know. And of course, there’s the returnability thing. There’s the whole business about if they can’t sell the books, they can return them to the publisher and get a complete refund. And that comes out of the authors. Yeah. You don’t get royalties on shit that gets returned. You don’t get anything. And if you’re a self-published author, if you allow returns, that’s going to come out of your hide. There are costs associated with that. You don’t want to go there. So I mean, the book selling business is a tough, tough business. Being an author is tough. I don’t care how much fun people say they’re having. It’s still very tough to write a good mystery, a really good story.

But as long as that’s the truth, we’ll continue to see innovation in storytelling. It won’t come from technology. The true innovation comes from here. There’s nothing innovative about putting your book up on Amazon. It’s just another book. It’s just a commodity. And if you’re putting out junk four times a year, I don’t care how many ads you run. At the end of the day, junk is just junk. Don’t do that. Don’t piss in the goddamn pool like that. Do your best work and put it out there. That’s the way to go. And as for this, well, read it. Take a look at what’s in there. Think about what you can be doing other than things online because there’s a lot. There’s so much out there in the world. Why would you sit at a computer all day cranking out stories for Amazon if you could be out there living a life?

That’s it. That’s all. And I will talk to you later. Be seeing you.

You can get the ebook from these retailers.

You can also get it in print from my online bookstore and support indie bookstores.