The Pickle: A Conversation About Making Digital Books

3: Opportunity Cost

Craig, you ask:

Is The Pickle Index app a book? What makes it more bookish than gameish?

Good question. I think The Pickle Index is a book because its heart is made of sentences, and — here’s some terminology I stole from you — because it has edges and can be finished. Simple as that. But I’m a maximalist in this regard; for instance, I think the app 80 Days, nominally a game, is in fact also a book, and possibly The Pickle Index’s only companion on the shelf of Truly Great Digital Books.

Some of your comments push toward an underlying question of labor and reward. It’s true: making a digital book good enough to pass muster with Sloan and Mod is hard work indeed. But I disagree with your estimate that there are “half a dozen folks in the world” who are capable of that kind of work; I think there are plenty of them, thousands! It’s just that most are currently being paid a lot of money by venture capitalists and/or Facebook to do something other than write and design digital books.

I mean, now that I’m thinking about it… why in the world would anyone do this? The opportunity cost is off the charts. The Pickle Index could be an actual social network. It could be the Instagram of fermentation! Eli and Russell could sell it to Pinterest for $20 million!

Good thing we have them right here so we can find out. Russell: why don’t you want your $20 million??

Note to readers: This is (going to be) a long, loopy conversation.The Pickle Index is crisp and tender. Consider appraising its pungent delights.

The Indexed Pickle

1. Opening Salvo [Robin Sloan]
2. Blank Slates! [Craig Mod]
3. ➡ Opportunity Cost [Robin Sloan]
4. The Struggle (Sorry) [Russell Quinn]
5. Self Selection & The Jaws of Venture Valley [Craig Mod]
6. The Many Futures of Storytelling [Eli Horowitz]
7. Recruitment [Robin Sloan]
8. Blarp [Eli Horowitz]
9. That Oracular Feeling [Robin Sloan]
10. Benevolent Leaders of the Frothy Kingdom [Craig Mod]
11. The Left-on-the-Floor Weirdness [Russell Quinn]
12. Territory of the Book [Eli Horowitz]
13. At This Moment [Robin Sloan]
14. Make a Book, Even Just One [Craig Mod]