I’m exploring a practice of what I’ll call “peer preview,” trying to assess the value a post provides to its audience, what other valuable projects could emerge from it, and how it might be viewed a year from now.
I like that this is a piece specifically about how to do nonfiction, rationalist-sphere blogging. There’s a fewentries in that niche, but it could use a few more. The advice about pursuing paid gigs on Quillette and Ribbonfarm, and fleshing out ideas on Twitter, seems useful for the likely audience of this post (or at least to me, who hadn’t considered those ideas). It’s far more tractable than the vague standard advice of “build an audience.” And the writing has some humor, detail, and a cartoon graph to leaven it.
If I imagine the potential of this sort of writing, it would be amazing if there was a “how to make friends and influence people with your blog” guide. What’s the distribution of readership for articles on LW, Quillette, or Ribbonfarm? Do noteworthy public intellectuals read these blogs? Do they find themselves influenced by the ideas they find there?
Nonfiction writing advice isn’t just about how to put words down; it’s about how to shape a global conversation, perhaps on pressing matters. Teaching people how to do that more effectively seems helpful. I wish it were all organized in one place. I bet the number of truly high-quality articles and interviews on how to write a good nonfiction blog (or do a good “serious ideas” podcast a la Conversations With Tyler or Rationally Speaking) is small enough to not have already been gathered together, yet large enough to be worth the gathering.
In the future, I think that a literature review of top-notch “how to blog effectively” advice would be more valuable than another entry into the genre.
Along those lines, I’d love to see an interview or podcast conversation between two or more rationalist-sphere podcasters about how they choose guests, how they manage to get interviews with prominent people, prepare for their conversations, whether they find that those conversations tend to change their own minds or the minds of their guests, and so on.
Note: In response to feedback, I’m removing part of these “peer preview” comments that may not be constructive.
I’m exploring a practice of what I’ll call “peer preview,” trying to assess the value a post provides to its audience, what other valuable projects could emerge from it, and how it might be viewed a year from now.
I like that this is a piece specifically about how to do nonfiction, rationalist-sphere blogging. There’s a few entries in that niche, but it could use a few more. The advice about pursuing paid gigs on Quillette and Ribbonfarm, and fleshing out ideas on Twitter, seems useful for the likely audience of this post (or at least to me, who hadn’t considered those ideas). It’s far more tractable than the vague standard advice of “build an audience.” And the writing has some humor, detail, and a cartoon graph to leaven it.
If I imagine the potential of this sort of writing, it would be amazing if there was a “how to make friends and influence people with your blog” guide. What’s the distribution of readership for articles on LW, Quillette, or Ribbonfarm? Do noteworthy public intellectuals read these blogs? Do they find themselves influenced by the ideas they find there?
Nonfiction writing advice isn’t just about how to put words down; it’s about how to shape a global conversation, perhaps on pressing matters. Teaching people how to do that more effectively seems helpful. I wish it were all organized in one place. I bet the number of truly high-quality articles and interviews on how to write a good nonfiction blog (or do a good “serious ideas” podcast a la Conversations With Tyler or Rationally Speaking) is small enough to not have already been gathered together, yet large enough to be worth the gathering.
In the future, I think that a literature review of top-notch “how to blog effectively” advice would be more valuable than another entry into the genre.
Along those lines, I’d love to see an interview or podcast conversation between two or more rationalist-sphere podcasters about how they choose guests, how they manage to get interviews with prominent people, prepare for their conversations, whether they find that those conversations tend to change their own minds or the minds of their guests, and so on.
Note: In response to feedback, I’m removing part of these “peer preview” comments that may not be constructive.