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  "text": "Andy Weir describing how he wrote The Martian and film got made is very entertaining.\n\nHe said, “I wanted to make sure dorks like me would enjoy it, so made it as scientifically accurate as possible”\n\nHere the play-by-play:\n\n▫️started writing full time in 1999 after getting fired from AOL (which had just merged with Netscape)\n\n▫️he was a programmer and had a ton of stock options…because he was fired, had 6 months to excercise them and sold at AOL’s peak before bubble popped\n\n▫️spent 3 years on book ideas that got “no traction” (and no agent wanted to sign him)\n\n▫️went back to work as software engineer and wrote online as a hobby (webcomics, short stories, serials) \n\n▫️The Martian was one of three serials he was working on 2009 (other one was about alien invading earth, another about a mermaid in 19th century New England)\n\n▫️sent stories to a mailing list of 3,000 readers he had built up over a decade \n\n▫️took 3 years to write The Martian, “posting a chapter at a time [every] 2 months” or so\n\n▫️ “spent more time researching than writing, because researching was more fun than writing” (very relatable) \n\n▫️readers corrected him along the way and when he was done, a bunch of them asked if he could make a Kindle version because reading it on his website sucked\n\n▫️Weir didn’t want to charge because was making solid living as programmer…but Kindle has minimum of $0.99\n\n▫️all his fans started buying the Kindle book and leaving positive reviews\n\n▫️this “sales spike” pushed book up charts and hit bestseller lists and just snowballed after that on Amazon\n\n▫️within a short span, major book publisher reached out…then Matt Damon expressed interest on a film project…then Ridley Scott threw his hat in the ring\n\n▫️Weir negotiated these deals while “debugging code” on his day job \n\nDescribed the process as “one of those things where everything just snuck up, bit by bit” before boooooooooom!!\n\nFilm came out in 2015: made $630m on $105m budget (and Project Hail Mary might pass that now).\n\n***\n\nLink to vid (2017): https://t.co/V9urNgxahL",
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