The best Literal Video: Wham Last Christmas

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 7:48 pm

Flack has a literal video on here he did of Kermit the Frog, but this is the best one I've seen. Wham with George Michael performing "Last Christmas." When I went to look it up, I discover that it's not there anymore. I think it's been pulled for infringement. I looked it up; Sony has pulled it. So you can't see it in a YouTube window here but as luck would have it, I downloaded it. If you have firefox and Quicktime it will run as streamed video if you click on it, otherwise you may have to download it.

http://viridian-development.com/Wham_Li ... istmas.mp4 (Caution: 20 megabytes)

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Tue Nov 02, 2010 10:03 am

I poured a year's worth of work into my book and sold 1,000 copies.

I spent two hours making a stupid video for Youtube and it currently has 35,000 views.

Life is unfair.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Wed Nov 03, 2010 4:16 pm

Flack wrote:I poured a year's worth of work into my book and sold 1,000 copies.

I spent two hours making a stupid video for Youtube and it currently has 35,000 views.

Life is unfair.

Which is easier to get to and costs nothing?

What was your book and what was it about?

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Wed Nov 03, 2010 5:55 pm

http://www.robohara.com/Commodork

It's pretty much every BBS story I have.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Thu Nov 04, 2010 12:39 am

Flack wrote:http://www.robohara.com/Commodork

It's pretty much every BBS story I have.

I think that's a cute trick on your page http://www.robohara.com/Commodork/author.htm, it says "check out his blog at robohara.com" which, if you try to click on the link, it jumps down to the next line, and if you move off what was the spot to go down to where the link now is, it pops back. It's kind of funny, the way you can't click on it no matter what you do.

Is this book self-published? 1,000 copies for a self-published, first time author isn't too bad. It's hard enough to get noticed for authors published by commercial presses, let alone unknown authors.

The problem for unknown authors is to get notice, let alone even getting published. I decided to release an earlier version of my story Instrument of God to get feedback, and have learned a few things - even things I didn't realize - from people who read it. You can read or download and read a 3 megabyte, 718 page copy for free at http://In-the-Matter-of.com/instrument.pdf.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Thu Nov 04, 2010 12:56 am

Flack wrote:http://www.robohara.com/Commodork

It's pretty much every BBS story I have.

Having read the first page, I ask you the question: why should anyone be interested in your story, what's the hook?

I'm not trying to play one-upsmanship here, but let me quote from page one of my book:

"Hi Bill, how are you doing?"
"Good afternoon 246."
"I presume that's him there," 246 says, pointing at a man sitting on a bed, with his trousers and underpants pulled down to his ankles.

Right here, I establish that the guy on the bed has done something or these guys are about to do something to him. Now the next line:

"Yep. The computer says he arrived from the United States. Specifically California. 15022 EN Leroy 504337. Unbelievable, isn't it?"

These guys ain't your typical criminal types like some punks doing a Deliverance like rape (reference to the guy's pants being down at his ankles), in fact they're probably cops, since this guy has been identified by some sort of serial number. It's a recent or future story since they have computers. Also they're not American cops (he came from the United States), so this is some foreign place. This might be a mystery story or a crime story or police procedural, so I hook the reader into wanting to learn more.

And I do all this in the first 6 lines of the story. I learned that from Robert A. Heinlein. The reader has lots of things he can choose from, why should he invest time (and cash, if you're intending to be a professional writer) in your story? Heinlein realized you have to grab them by the first page. He was brilliant, the greatest science fiction writer the world has ever known.

Why should we want to read your story, what is going to hook the audience? Why should they care?

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Thu Nov 04, 2010 7:57 am

Tdarcos wrote:Is this book self-published? 1,000 copies for a self-published, first time author isn't too bad. It's hard enough to get noticed for authors published by commercial presses, let alone unknown authors.

It is self-published. 1,000 copies is a low estimate. That doesn't count digital Amazon sales (Kindle), iTunes (iBooks) or PDF copies from my own site.

Tdarcos wrote:Why should we want to read your story, what is going to hook the audience? Why should they care?

Generally speaking, other people who shared the experience of growing up "online" (on BBSes, not the Internet) have enjoyed it. I put the first chapter of my book online for people to read for free on my website, so by reading that most people should be able to tell if my book will interest them or not. I suppose you could ask ICJ or Aardvark why they wanted to read Commodork and what they thought of it.

Out of the 1,000+ sales I've only received two negative reviews, both of whom bought the book expecting something it's not (which is why I put the first chapter up for people to read).