

The Martian started as a self-published blog, and became a major motion picture - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/20/creativity/the-hit-book-that-came-from-mars-rd

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mkramlich
This is on my list to read after being recommended to me directly twice.

As a fellow writer of fiction (The Dread Space Pirate Richard, a sci-fi comedy
adventure faerie tale for adults) I was also encouraged to learn that this was
another case of an "overnight success" that was years in the making. In an
interview with Weir he said that before he started posting his orig blog
serialization of The Martian, he already had been writing publically for 10
years and had built up a fanbase of about 1500 subscribers or regular visitors
to his blog. So, he had had a big channel of eyeballs ready to go on day one.
Even then the serialization didn't explode over night, was a slow grow thing.
But a good case can be made that he might never have reached the necessary
critical mass of attention for The Martian if he didn't start with that built-
in fan channel. Or, it probably would have taken much longer.

Note to self: "I have N years to go. I have N years to go..."

~~~
munificent
Just to offer a counter-point: I got about halfway through the book and lost
interest.

I'm really happy for the author's success, and I don't at all think it's a bad
book. But I found it to be basically pure "survival porn". I like MacGyver
too, but I don't think I could watch a four hour episode of it, and that's
what the book felt like to me.

The characters and writing are solid, but the constant peril and clever
solutions just got tedious after a while.

If you "How is he going to get himself out of _this_?" is enough to keep you
going for an entire book, you'll probably love it. But if you need a bit more
than that, it may lose your interest.

~~~
mkramlich
I had a similar reaction. Maybe because I've been reading for 35+ years and
read stuff which is prob much better than The Martian. I see its attractions
and his skill, no doubt, but felt lately there's a bit of a hype train going
on where the actual material is nowhere near as good as the hype.

Its not as bad as the hype-to-reality gap for Fifty Shades though: that's a
book where I couldn't go more than a page or so, every time I've sampled it
(partly out of curiousity, partly to study its secrets), without groaning or
laughing aloud at how bad it is.

The Martian is much much better than that, but his formula shows its bones
quickly.

~~~
vl
Granted it's rather simplistic story, spoiled by the fact that you know that
there is a happy end (otherwise book wouldn't have a point), but it's still
solid and entertaining. It's like Gravity done well and right.

Importantly, it's distinct from other kind of entertaining books - I still
read Da Vinci Code, but while it was entertaining, it's both terrible writing
and story. Martian is different - yes, you know what's going to happen, but
journey is the point.

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nullc
The book was great, like many people I discovered it after pointing someone
else to
[http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html](http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html)

I loved reading The Martian online even in the inherently somewhat annoying
written in realtime form; so much I showed up to get a signed copy when it was
released.

In general I'm a sucker for hard scifi, but much of the state of the art in
that space is often inaccessible to those of my friends that aren't deeply
versed in the literature. The Martian is both accessible (at least to an
audience which is generally okay with science and technology) and compelling
story telling as well.

~~~
kaybe
Here is an older thread about the story:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7203095](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7203095)

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seriocomic
I can thoroughly recommend the audiobook - [http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-
Fantasy/The-Martian-Audiobo...](http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-
Martian-Audiobook/B00B5HZGUG) \- R.C. Bray's narration nails both the inner-
monologue/diary and also the rest of the supporting cast. The 12,000+ ratings
on Audible are also a good testament.

~~~
knodi123
that's how I consumed it. Bray's accents and intonations really were
impressive, considering he was able to make a cast of a dozen or so people all
have a unique and easily recognized voice.

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themodelplumber
Calling it a blog is a bit of a stretch. But because it's so simple, it's
worth checking out:
[http://www.galactanet.com/writing.html](http://www.galactanet.com/writing.html)

Note to self: Think about _that_ the next time you're obsessing about how cool
your author site needs to be before you publish anything :-)

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siyer
Andy Weir gave a fun talk at Google about his experiences writing the
book/some of the software he used to help him in his planning. You can find it
here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMfuLtjgzA8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMfuLtjgzA8)

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DanBC
> The publisher said, well, the setting that you’ve made for this is really
> cool, but the story that you came up with to take place in the setting is
> just not that interesting. So they rejected it! So getting your book on The
> New York Times’ best-seller list doesn’t mean you get a rubber stamp on your
> next book!

Publishers fucking suck. Why is he stuck with a publisher when he has a
sucessful self-published book already?

~~~
EliRivers
Perhaps Charlie Stross' excellent series of articles can help you find reasons
why someone might choose to get a publisher. This would be a good one to start
with: [http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/03/why-i-
do...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/03/why-i-dont-self-
publish.html)

~~~
wpietri
John Scalzi has also talked about this a number of times on his blog,
including these two:

[http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/02/13/publishing-
notes-21314...](http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/02/13/publishing-notes-21314/)

[http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/03/why-in-fact-
publishing...](http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/03/why-in-fact-publishing-
will-not-go-away-anytime-soon-a-deeply-slanted-play-in-three-acts/)

The short version is that he thinks publishers do a lot for him, and that he's
perfectly happy to keep working with them.

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KhalilK
This book was recommended to me as extremely detail-oriented, and extremely
detail-oriented it was! Fun, engrossing and really entertaining, specially if
you are a KSP fan like myself. I have added it to my list of books to inspire
my kids. So if they ever come to me and say, "Dad, what is chemistry good
for?" I can just give them The Martian and say, "read this and you'll know",
they will be calculating limiting reagents as if their lives depended on it!

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captaincrowbar
A recommendation: if you like The Martian, you'll probably like the movie The
Europa Report.

~~~
drcode
Hmm... I liked The Martian a lot, but hated The Europa Report. They don't
really seem comparable: The Europa Report has silly martians and little hard
science... it's more like "Blair Witch Project in Space" IMHO.

~~~
jinushaun
I was expecting hard science but got a monster movie instead.

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51Cards
This was a great book, I couldn't put it down. Looking forward to seeing the
movie adaption and also genuinely excited to see what Weir puts out next. I
don't read as often as I used to so it was wonderful to be so enthused about a
book and author again.

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e40
Note that the book is no longer $0.99, as stated in the article. It's
currently $8.39 (vs $9.00 for the paperback). I always get disappointed to see
such a small difference in price between Kindle and paperback.

~~~
wpietri
Yeah, it throws me into a calculus of tradeoffs. Am I willing to bet 61 cents
that this book will be good enough that I will want to lend it to a friend?
What are the odds that the used bookstore will pay something for it? If I do
decide to keep the physical copy, which book on my already-full shelves will
get removed in favor of it?

Given that it costs them more than 61 cents to print and distribute the
physical version, which I interpret them as gouging on the electronic version,
there's also a fuck-me-no-fuck-you urge to buy the physical copy.

~~~
walterbell
Some physical book purchases include the Kindle edition for free, under the
Matchbook program.

~~~
wpietri
That's definitely progress. But what I really want is an ability to upgrade. I
buy the Kindle version, and if it is awesome, they let me buy the print
version for the difference (possibly plus a nominal amount like $0.99). Then I
can defer the physical-or-virtual question until later.

~~~
wpietri
Why in the world are people downvoting this? I'm normally happy to take my
lumps, but I don't even see the problem here.

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sehr
Wow the cast & production for crew for this is insane. Same director &
cinematographer from Prometheus too, at the very least it's going to be a
pretty movie

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mabbo
This is the first book I've ever read three times. Every 6 months or so, I
pick it up to look something up and wind up re-reading the whole thing.

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InclinedPlane
Wool also started similarly and is now one of the most highly recommended
scifi books.

