Interview with Dmitri Sled: Editor of Coloring Outside the Lines

This intro was conducted through email on February 17, 2008. Dmitri Sled is the editor for Coloring Outside the Lines: Confessions of a Digital Native. A bit about Dmitri: Dmitri Sled was born in Moscow, where he spent the first half of his life. He lived in Philadelphia and New Jersey after moving to the US, and recently graduated from Bennington College in Vermont. To this day he cannot figure out if his life is going to be that of a traveling rock & roll musician or a writer fond of late nights and solitude. Though clever and good-natured, he has often been accused of excessive cynicism and grouchery.

1. How did you find out about this project?

I found the project through Craigslist. It’s where I find most (if not all) employment and freelance opportunities.

2. What were your thoughts when you first read the job description? Did you think you were going to be selected?

The job description didn’t tell me what exactly the book was about, but the tone of the ad indicated a serious, non-fictional project. I usually don’t have much faith in Craigslist - everyone uses it to hunt for jobs, and it’s hard for a young graduate with (comparatively) few credentials on his resume to stand out. I imagine places getting dozens of applications in their inboxes within a half an hour after posting a wanted ad. However, something told me this gig would be a good one to get, so I did something I’ve never done before - I put a positive spin on the weakness of being inexperienced. It paid off.

3. What did you learn from the project?

One important thing I learned is that I can do it - ‘it’ being the task of editing a full-length book and creating a printable layout for it. What made the project even more difficult was that I had to select content that would blend well together and flow as a single work. It’s an enormous amount of responsibility and at times I wasn’t completely sure of myself. However, everything came together very well in the end. Also, being intimately acquainted with the contents of the book, I absorbed all the information it has to pass on to readers.

4. What was the most fascinating parts of the project?

The most fascinating part of the project had to be the ‘meat & potatoes’ of the book. The subject matter isn’t something I knew anything about, or was particularly interested in, so I ended up learning quite a bit about the digital entrepreneur’s world, basically from scratch. It was a chance for me to look at the digital culture that defines my generation from a different perspective. The other day, a coworker was talking about a startup he had worked for: the startup was losing a great deal of money because their business model was created with no long-term revenue-generating plan in mind. To my delight, I found myself talking, and even forming educated opinions, about this stuff.

5. Were there any specific stories/anecdotes/postings of Darren’s that really resonated with you?

I identified with Darren’s adolescent life - I was also into computers at a young age, and I even briefly dabbled in graphic design (I remember I could create an orange from scratch). I was also interested in what he had to say about some of the ethical dilemmas that arose in the past 10-15 years (movie/music piracy, etc). For example, the post about the 1 cent gap: it’s very true that everyone expects to find everything on the internet for free…so how does one make money off content that’s free of charge? Or the post about ethics in the 21st century: are the industries eventually going to bow down to the facts about services like bittorrent and adjust their distribution models accordingly, or are the public awareness campaigns about illegal downloading going to impact the social consciousness to the point where downloading bootlegged movies is going to become unfashionable?

6. How long did everything take? Was it easy to work with Darren?

It took a bit longer than we anticipated, partly because of the holiday season, and partly because things of that magnitude don’t often run on schedule. There was a lot of fine-tuning at the end (layout, etc), where we sent things to each other back and forth, and that took up some time. Darren was very easy to work with - he was courteous, responded in a timely fashion, and his suggestions for improving the book were easy to understand and implement.

7. Any closing thoughts? - did the book turn out how you wanted it to?

I’m glad I got the opportunity to work on this project, and I hope the book does very well. More importantly, though, I hope the readers get something out of it (like becoming better entrepreneurs). I am very grateful to Darren for entrusting me with turning several years’ material from his blog into his first published book.