Paul Carr (writer)

Paul Carr
Photograph of Paul Carr by Richard Moross
Born	(1979-12-07) 7 December 1979 Dunfermline, Scotland
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	British
Website
www.paulcarr.com

Paul Carr (born 7 December 1979) is a British writer, journalist and commentator, based in San Francisco.^[1] He has also—as he wrote on his official website—"edited various publications and founded numerous businesses with varying degrees of abysmal failure."^[2] Carr is editorial director of PandoDaily.^[3]

Memoirs

Carr's first autobiographical book, Bringing Nothing To The Party—True Confessions Of A New Media Whore, was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2008.^[4] It tells the story of "a unique group of hard-partying, high-achieving young entrepreneurs—and [Carr's] attempts to join them, whatever the cost."^[5] According to one review, the book follows Carr’s "journey from gonzo journalist, to accidental business owner, to accidental web business mogul, to very-near-jailbird, to working out what actually makes him happy in life."^[6]

On 19 December 2009 Carr, in a controversial move, decided to release Bringing Nothing To The Party as a free ebook download on TechCrunch.^[7] Carr is one of the first in the field to give away a published book as a free download, as most publishers specifically prohibit this. However, Carr owns the rights to the US version of the book (which is available on the Kindle) and wanted to appeal to those who did not have a Kindle and wanted to read it. Carr decided to release his book online, despite the fact that people geographically elsewhere might also download it. (This is a problem because his publisher's parent company owns the digital rights to the book outside of North America.) The ebook can also be downloaded directly from Carr's website.^[8]

In 2010, it was reported^[9] that Weidenfeld & Nicolson would publish a second book by Carr in May 2011, titled The Upgrade.^[10] The book tells the story of how, after the events described in Bringing Nothing To The Party, Carr "decides to sell most of his possessions, abandon his old life and live entirely in upscale hotels—as a modern-day nomad."^[11] The book describes Carr's physical travels to the United States and other countries, including Spain, France, Germany, Canada and Iceland,^[12] as well as his personal journey, documenting Carr's battles with alcohol and subsequent attempt to give up drinking.^[13] In March, 2012 an article by Carr was published in the Wall Street Journal titled "How I Stopped Drowning in Drink," detailing his realization that he was an alcoholic and his successful self-designed program to stop drinking.^[14]

Satirical writing

In 2001, while studying law^[15] at university, Carr co-founded and edited the award-winning satirical "comment sheet," The Friday Thing.^[16]

In 2002, The Christian Scientist described Carr as a "latter day Jonathan Swift" following the publication of his satirical anti-vigilante manifesto "Think of the Children."^[17] In the same year, Carr co-founded the London city guide, London by London.^[18]

He has also written for television, most recently for Alison Jackson's Doubletake series.^[19]

New Media writing

In July 2009 it was announced^[20] that Carr would be writing a weekly column for technology news site TechCrunch and also blogging regularly for The Telegraph newspaper. On 16 September 2011, Carr announced on TechCrunch that he was resigning from the AOL-owned properties.

Prior to joining TechCrunch,^[21] Carr wrote a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper entitled "Not Safe For Work"^[22] which followed his adventures in the technology industry. Between 2003-2005 he wrote a regular new media column for Media Guardian.^[23]

Carr has also authored a series of nine web guide books for Prentice Hall,^[24] as well as co-authoring The Unofficial Tourists’ Guide to Second Life published by Pan Macmillan (UK) and St Martin's Press (US) in 2007.^[25]

Carr was a regular user of Twitter,^[26] but deleted his account in August 2010 to focus on blogging.^[27] Carr resumed using Twitter in April 2011.^[28]

Entrepreneurship

In 2005, along with Clare Christian, Carr co-founded The Friday Project,^[29] a book publishing house specializing in finding material on the web and then turning it into traditional books.

Carr left The Friday Project in December 2006,^[30] along with online editor Karl Webster, to lead a buy-out of the company's Internet media arm, which led to the founding of online city site Fridaycities.com.^[31] Carr left Fridaycities in 2007, when the site re-branded as Kudocities.^[32] He later described himself as "NSFW" (Not Safe For Work).^[33]

In September 2011, having publicly resigned from TechCrunch^[34] following the departure of founder Michael Arrington, it was reported that Carr planned ^[35] to return to entrepreneurship. One month later, Carr announced the launch of Not Safe For Work Corporation, an online satirical news weekly. The company was reportedly backed by investments from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and Arrington's CrunchFund.^[36]

Not Safe For Work Corporation, or "NSFW Corp", failed financially^[37] and was sold to technology news Web site PandoDaily^[38] which was also funded by Hsieh alongside Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel.^[39]

External links

• Paul Carr's Site
• The Kings Of The Road Club: Publisher's Information
• Bringing Nothing To The Party: Publisher's Information
• Bringing Nothing to the Party - True Confessions of a New Media Whore Complete eBook
• Not Safe For Work Corporation

Footnotes