Kudos out to the folks at MetaFilter for this thread that I wrote about a while back. I purchased several books mentioned in the thread, including:
- The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward R. Tufte
- Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey A. Moore
- Influence: Science and Practice, by Robert B. Cialdini
All of these are classic texts for their field, it appears, and I can see why. I’ve learned a lot from reading them, though I haven’t really given Visual Display the time it deserves yet.
So yes, it is possible to make money because strangers on the Internet think you’ve done good work and recommend it to others. I have no idea if this is Long Tail stuff or not, and I don’t care. I learned a bunch of good stuff from interesting books, and continue to learn all sorts of interesting stuff from random strangers over at MetaFilter.
More reasons why the Internet is completely awesome.