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Captain Crunch (and Steve Wozniak) Write New Book: 'Beyond the Little Blue Box' (kickstarter.com)
Slashdot reader blottsie shares a new article about the legendary Captain Crunch -- which includes Steve Wozniak's memory that Steve Jobs "started avoiding Crunch...afraid that it would put us too close to getting arrested." The Daily Dot reports:
Wozniak and Jobs, of course, would go on to found the most successful tech company in the world. But Draper is far from being just an important footnote in Apple's history. He's the original hacking prankster, a purist driven by curiosity and craftsmanship, with a lifetime of exploits that have pushed technological and legal boundaries. And according to Jobs, in a rare 1994 interview, without him there wouldn't have been Apple. Now, for the first time, Draper is looking to publish his story with Beyond the Little Blue Box, an autobiography for which he's about to launch a Kickstarter campaign...
[H]e anonymously called in a national emergency directly to a furious President Richard Nixon on the Oval Office phone line, reporting that the West Coast had run out of toilet paper. He also claims he once bypassed the Iron Curtain to call Moscow in the Soviet Union. There's a playful mischief about him, but he's serious when it comes to his craft, relaying technical, intricate details about the systems he worked to hack... For many tinkering young coders and internet activists, Draper is still considered a folk hero, one whose apolitical infatuation with complex systems and compulsion to expose their limits made him a target -- especially where that curiosity crossed with corporate interests.
"Experiences like that taught us the power of ideas," Steve Jobs said in a 1994 interview. "The power of understanding that if you could build this box, you could control hundreds of billions of dollars around the world, that's a powerful thing." Steve Wozniak -- who writes the book's foreword -- remembers how Jobs ended that interview. "Steve Jobs said -- and I agree -- that without the blue box there might never have been an Apple."
Draper's Kickstarter campaign includes a "2600 Club" Bronze level, while people who pledge over $199 will receive an actual blue anonabox. And there's also a $10,000 "Super Phreak" level which includes a "VIP one-to-one meeting" with 74-year-old John Draper himself.
[H]e anonymously called in a national emergency directly to a furious President Richard Nixon on the Oval Office phone line, reporting that the West Coast had run out of toilet paper. He also claims he once bypassed the Iron Curtain to call Moscow in the Soviet Union. There's a playful mischief about him, but he's serious when it comes to his craft, relaying technical, intricate details about the systems he worked to hack... For many tinkering young coders and internet activists, Draper is still considered a folk hero, one whose apolitical infatuation with complex systems and compulsion to expose their limits made him a target -- especially where that curiosity crossed with corporate interests.
"Experiences like that taught us the power of ideas," Steve Jobs said in a 1994 interview. "The power of understanding that if you could build this box, you could control hundreds of billions of dollars around the world, that's a powerful thing." Steve Wozniak -- who writes the book's foreword -- remembers how Jobs ended that interview. "Steve Jobs said -- and I agree -- that without the blue box there might never have been an Apple."
Draper's Kickstarter campaign includes a "2600 Club" Bronze level, while people who pledge over $199 will receive an actual blue anonabox. And there's also a $10,000 "Super Phreak" level which includes a "VIP one-to-one meeting" with 74-year-old John Draper himself.
erice inquired:
Especially one where "the writing is done and most of the editing". Are conventional publishers not interested? Or is this just a means of coaxing a better deal out of publishers?
I understand crowd funding for projects to expensive to self fund yet too small for conventional venture capital. But conventional book publishing seems to have this covered. Writers write. Publishers publish and sometimes providers editors and advance payment to writers. Is there reason to believe this book would not be published were it not for the kickstarter campaign?
Here's the thing most people don't realize about the publishing industry: unless you're already a bestselling author, traditional publishing companies don't make even a token effort to promote your book. Yes. that's a sillly strategy, but it's pretty much the default for the Big Six and their eleventy-seven scrillion imprints. They don't advertise, other than to list your title in their catalogue, they don't send marketing material to radio and tv talk shows, they don't, in fact, do dick to help you sell your book. They don't even send copies to reviewers, unless those reviewers specifically request them.
Which means it's up to you, the author, to do all the marketing and advertising for your book.
You're the one who has to call tv and radio shows to pitch them on having you on as a guest. You're the one who has to contact reviewers and try to persuade them to read your book - and you'll have to send them a copy that you bought with your own money, if they agree to do so. If you want print or radio ads, or posters, or standees, or tchotkes like bookmarks, pens, coffee mugs, and the like to promote your book, you get to hire a designer, pay to have them printed, and hand them out yourself. You get to hustle bookstores and libraries to let you give readings and hold booksignings. All that stuff is on you, and if there are expenses involved, they come out of your pocket.
Basically, if you got a million-dollar advance, then your publisher will pull out all the promotional stops. But if you're just another face in the authorial crowd, then marketing and promoting your book is YOUR problem.
And that, dear erice, is why a book that's already written and in the process of being edited needs a Kickstarter campaign ...
Check out my novel.