Since You Asked...the book

Cary Tennis's Salon advice column, Since You Asked, is going to be turned into a book. And he wants readers to vote on the best ones (Site Pass required to view the full piece).

But he hasn't signed with Simon Spotlight or Random Hizzle, oh no. Cary's putting out this little baby all by himself because, when he tried dealing with the industry hobgoblins, things just got "weird and twisted." We don't blame you, Cary -- although you do strike us as a bit of a micro-manager:

"After an appropriate period of cursing and teeth gnashing, I decided we should do what feels right and publish it ourselves. That way the experience is authentic and down to earth and spiritually correct: It's just us funky West Coast weirdos publishing a book, celebrating this community of amazing readers and writers with amazing problems and solutions and wild ideas and feelings and life stories.

So that's what we'll do. My wife and I are going to design, edit and publish this. Between us, we have all the editorial, graphic production and design expertise required. Moreover, we have rather strong feelings about how it should look, how it should exist as an object. I never did like the idea of having the book publisher control the look of the book anyway. I don't like how most books look. I didn't want my book to end up looking like all the other books. I love books and I want mine to be a book for people who love books. I want it to look better than other books. I want it to be a wonderful object.

Not fancy, but cool and wonderful."

It is a nice idea (and yet another thing we'll be adding to our Amazon.com wishlist), but an anonymous Salon commentator points out the obvious:

"I'll type slowly since Salon's editors can't think fast.

Let's see...I can freely access and print any of Cary's columns I would ever care to save, assuming there would be enough to fill a book, let alone a matchbook.

Explain to me again why the fuck anyone would be dumb enough to buy a book of stuff they can get for free?

(When you figure that out you'll know why your Salon Premium hasn't done all that well, too.)

-- news flash: no one buys a cow when they get free milk"

Sad, but true.

We save Cary's columns all the time. Here's one: How do I overcome the intertia? (again, Site Pass required -- don't be lazy). Now, go listen to some of Cary's awesome audio rants.