I'm currently writing a book about independent thinking and I have zero expectations that it will sell even a single copy. However, the net gain I will get from having completed the goal of writing the book is invaluable to me personally.
Also there are times when I decide I want to read my own stuff for entertainment instead of a published novel. And the joy I get from that keeps me writing.
As an aside though I feel that the science/engineering heavy HN crowd would bring some life to science fiction. We have the ability to write things that make technical sense and I'm sure many of you internally roast the handwaviness seen in some franchises. I don't know if I'm the only one that does this but I plan out the computer networks my characters use, draw cutaways and chip architecture diagrams for new devices I come up with, read scientific papers for research, and so forth. Sometimes that's even more fun than the actual writing!
The best part about writing the story yourself is that it never ends unless you want it to (or you end, I suppose).
Like how HN was recently talking about 8 hours to code the first time, but half hour to retype the same code from memory the next day. The code is almost an small (but critical) artefact.
But the idea of coming across a strange book few people have read, and finding unconventional wisdom and writing inside that no publisher would ever put out, sounds exciting!
I think more people should write books and publish them in small quantities and just give them away for others to discover some day. Let the books circulate through the world, growing old and more mysterious with time. It’d be better than keeping some static blog site that will disappear after a decade.
- Paradigms Lost by John Simon. A lot of these older cultural/writing commentary books don't seem to be digitized, but are absolutely worth reading
- Some older tourism books. For example, I have a little pamphlet book on visiting Yugoslavia, written in Polish.
- Unique/interesting formats. For example, I have a book of "useful words for dealing with capitalists and their markets" that was written in German during the DDR. It has about 2,000 words written side-by-side in 8 languages, including English, German, French, Czech, and some others.
- Older magazines, especially fashion magazines. Very hard to get a hold of or find online.
I'd love it if the first page was just "Stop reading other people's thoughts and go think." And then the rest of the pages are blank.