AMAZON ALGORITHMS

When you start out on a project like Transparent Drawing, you have no idea how it will be categorized. Amazon algorithms put it in good company.

I had hoped that Transparent Drawing would be between categories. On Amazon, the book has, as associated products, all sorts of unique drawing tools. As the screen shot below attests, some of these are:

-Wooden Drawing Projector for Kids
-Optical Image Drawing Board
-Transparent 3D Drawing Mat, for DIY Drawing
-Paragon Sketch Wizard
-Magic Glow Pad Light Up Drawing Board
-etc.

All of these products, are tools. They provide a knowledge pathway. Each is a complete system. All get you to draw in some way. All are 100% analogue.

But by far, the greatest honor is that the algorithms show the Etch-a-Sketch as an associated product. I find that to be wonderful. As a kid, I had an Etch-a-Sketch, and I was always fascinated with it. I could never really execute any sort of graphic that, at least to my ordinary cultural sensibilities, I thought were any good. Yet that did not keep me from trying.

Indeed Transparent Drawing is Etch-a-Sketch like. It is a tool. It is a holistic system. You produce transparent images with it. And look at the image that is on the Etch-a-Sketch at the top. NO USB! That would have made a great cover image for Transparent Drawing: no USB port.

It is just so great that the book does not have as associated products, say, a graphic book by Ching. Or some sort of digital drawing app. In fact, no other books associate with it. No, it appears, at least for the time being, to be on it’s own wavelength. What else would you expect from a book that mandates that you Draw Like A Byzantine.

I have no idea what that portends. Possibly this means that nobody will ever find it. Possibly my publisher is already cringing and saying to themselves, what have we gotten ourselves into. (They probably said that long ago.) If so, so be it. I really had hoped that Transparent Drawing would establish it’s own unique pathway. And from how it looks right now, the Amazon algorithms agree.