Creative Director Starts Drinking Heavily

September 29, 2012 8:28 AM

How Does An Idea Become A Book? (flowchart)
posted by The Whelk (25 comments total)

I like that Stephen King exists in a closed loop.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:39 AM on September 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

I like that goats are the inevitable conclusion.
posted by catlet at 9:03 AM on September 29, 2012

The nuts and bolts of "Creating a Book"
Really an amusing Infographic :-)
posted by molisk at 9:10 AM on September 29, 2012

Catlet:

"I like that goats are the inevitable conclusion."

Ironically, I very recently sold a book called "101 Uses For a Spare Goat."

(P.S.: This is actually true)
posted by jscalzi at 9:28 AM on September 29, 2012 [13 favorites]

The part that says "Copyeditor quits in horror" should say "Copy editor swallows bile, chokes back tears, hopes she will be paid on time after faithfully delivering manuscript a week early."
posted by scratch at 9:30 AM on September 29, 2012 [7 favorites]

Very nice.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:36 AM on September 29, 2012

Ironically, I very recently sold a book called "101 Uses For a Spare Goat."

I had no idea you had been a copy editor....
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:37 AM on September 29, 2012

First printing of this comment: "Copy editing? How quant."
Second printing of this comment: "Copy editing? How quaint."
posted by ifandonlyif at 9:44 AM on September 29, 2012 [5 favorites]

I like that goats are the inevitable conclusion.

How far down the rabbit hole does it go?!

"Raising Goats For Dummies", "Living with Goats", "The Joy of Keeping Goats", "Pygmy Goats", "Goat: A Memoir", "The Autobiography of a Goat", "The Backyard Goat", "Goats in Trees", "Don't Let the Goats Eat the Loquat Trees", "The Year of the Goat", "The Judas Goat", "The Feast of the Goat", "Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories", "The Men Who Stare at Goats", "A Goat by Any Other Name is Still a Fucking Goat"...
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:55 AM on September 29, 2012

I thought the step between idea and book was a blog, which I believe stands for "book idea log". This is where you post broad ideas online and you log the comments, suggestions and experiences of visitors until you have a book's worth of material.
posted by 445supermag at 10:00 AM on September 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

I thought the step between idea and book was a blog, which I believe stands for "book idea log".

You mean ".tumblr.com"
posted by Fizz at 10:08 AM on September 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh, they forgot a step:
"Book contains zombies or vampires"---->PUBLISH!
posted by sexyrobot at 10:42 AM on September 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

For anyone who'd like the original source of the infographic, here it is.
posted by sgranade at 10:53 AM on September 29, 2012

sexyrobot, I'm writing a book containing zombies AND vampires. Does that mean they'll publish it?
posted by cstross at 11:28 AM on September 29, 2012

Or Jane Austen shit, sexyrobot. Don't discount horrible horrible horrible Jane Austen shit.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 11:29 AM on September 29, 2012

Jane Austin shit with ZOMBIES! What could possibly go wrong?
posted by cstross at 11:31 AM on September 29, 2012

It's missing one other starting point: "Tom Friedman gets in a cab in a foreign country."
posted by gompa at 11:31 AM on September 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh, they forgot a step:
"Book contains zombies or vampires"---->PUBLISH!

Or

"Book contains journeys" PUBLISH!!

As in:

Goatherd: My Journey Through Love, Loss and The Spirit, One Goat at a Time

Jane Austin shit with ZOMBIES! What could possibly go wrong?

You mean this?
posted by space_cookie at 11:44 AM on September 29, 2012

Bad HTML could happen, yes.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:56 AM on September 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Argh. This?
posted by space_cookie at 12:02 PM on September 29, 2012

Ironically, I very recently sold a book called "101 Uses For a Spare Goat."

Mefi's Own Scalzi is getting dangerously close to the same status as Stephen King & Lady Gaga on that chart. I am looking forward to the day he places a listing on MetaFilter Jobs for a Ghost Writer...

But I'm still deeply disappointed that the books from Jon Rosenberg's Goats webcomic did not sell better. They had satanic chickens (one of whom controlled the body of a headless biker), ambiguously gay aliens, multi-dimensional pubs, a messianic computer programmer, a talking broccoli who's a conceptual artist (my favorite character), Woody Allen substituting for God, a rural alternative universe run by farmgirls, a demon-managed corporation, unicorn dogs, a goldfish in love with Reese Witherspoon, the Aztec Apocolypse and, of course, one of Zeus's personal goats who became pure evil after getting burned by demon fire. But, yeah, needed more vampires or zombies.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:47 PM on September 29, 2012

I like how "Write Book" is one little step on that process.

[flips back to overlong Word document; hits self in face with shovel]
posted by bicyclefish at 3:40 PM on September 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

Zombie goats.
posted by Catch at 3:40 PM on September 29, 2012

_{I never cared for Goats.}
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:09 PM on September 29, 2012

I found out recently that something called a "goat pyramid" exists, and my cousin was crazy enough to get married at a farm that had one (he lived in Iowa and apparently that was the site of their first date).

You can turn goats into a pyramid?!
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:02 PM on September 29, 2012