Erik Hoel at The Intrinsic Perspective: It began earlier this year, when someone I respect and like reached out to me. Their offer? Do a book club version of a Master Class (get interviewed, write some commentary) about any book I want. The payment—notably high since it required only a few filming sessions and a little writing—was a hefty $20,000.
Truth be told, I don’t quite make enough money here on Substack yet to be financially on budget. I make tantalizing close enough, enough to be the main support for my family, and I cobble together the rest through other means, like the occasional book deal or speaking fees, and also from being a surprisingly savvy (or perhaps just lucky) investor. Thanksgiving is coming up, so I’ll note that I’m lucky in general to make as much as I do from writing and thinking. We all choose what to maximize in our lives and careers, and I made a conscious choice to have quiet flexible time for reading and research and writing and being a parent, rather than trying to make a lot of money, which is why I moved out to Cape Cod. Kurt Vonnegut also moved out to Cape Cod when he started writing full-time (he wrote Slaughterhouse Five just a town over from me) but he had to moonlight at a Saab dealership. I don’t have to do that, so I’m lucky.
All to say, an easy $20,000 is not nothing for me. Additionally, I was excited by the idea of a book club, for it immediately popped into my head to do it on Michel de Montaigne.
In the late 1500s Michel de Montaigne became the delight of the Parisian aristocracy with his Essais; he was the first to truly popularize the essay as a literary form, and, through his musings on daily life, became one of the great practical philosophers of the Renaissance…
More here.
