Oh my god, okay, so there’s this thing, right? Did you hear? There are these people, just ordinary people like you and me except they got lucky because there’s this revolution going on and people are bulldozing the libraries all across America right now and taking apart those Barns’n'No-Bull stores or whatever they’re called, which is, ha, funny, because it’s like that saying about locking the barn door after… anyway, I gotta tell you this, it’s so cool, and you’ll never believe it, but back to these lucky folks, one of them is called Joe Konehead and there’s even this really young chick named Amanda Hawking (I think she’s the little sister of that handicapped spacegeek with the creepy computer voice), and they heard about this new book revolution, only they’re not books, they’re eBooks and, oh my god, LOL, this is so amazing, you gotta keep listening. So they made, like, more money than Jesus at a Casino thanks to these iKindles and MaxiPads and all the other eReaders that all these big companies are now making especially for the eBooks, and you know, here’s the thing, you can now go sell your eBooks on them since it’s so easy, anyone can do it…
What’s that? No, you don’t have to be like Walt Shakespeare or even that Dan Vinci & Co dude, you know? Seriously. You don’t need to worry about the writing. It’s not like your high school English class any more, with all those Mice and Mockingbirds and a bunch of hillbillies with weird names like Spartacus Lynch who sound like totally uncool racists, lol—you know, those classes everyone knew were stupid and wouldn’t help you in life in any way what-so-ever. No, it’s all done for you in the software, now, and you get it all formatted for you when you upchuck it to Amazon or whatever, or this other website called Crushwords that literally crushes up all your words and spits them out of an actual meat grinder along with a really helpful manual that you honestly don’t really need to read, and it’s so cool… only you don’t actually see it, it’s all done behind the scenes… although I don’t exactly know how they separate the bits of shredded paper from the ground beef afterward… but moving on…!
What’s that? Editing? Nah, Squishwords and Amazon do all that for you, you don’t need to bother with it because you’ll be busy rounding up new words to join together for your next book because it’s all about mo-men-tum and you also have to market it, so what you do is you get someone to help you set up a blog on WordLess.org or Booger.com or whatever and you don’t need to do much, just put in one of those blue lines you click on which takes you to where your eBook is selling like hot, juicy, word-drenched cakes as you watch the money pouring into your PlayPen account while you sign books and look awesome and adorable having your photo taken and shit.
By the way, you guys, I like the word eBooks because the “e” part sounds like the noise inside my head, you know? Eeeeeeeeeeee. LOL!
Oh, and here’s a big secret I’m gonna tell you, because I’m going to wet my Lululemons if I don’t: all you gotta do is write about vampires. Or dragons. And guess what? You shouldn’t make them too scary because you have to write for most people, who are all pretty much major wusses, but here’s the really neat part… ha, ha… you make them fall in love. Just like it would happen in real life.
Huh? Story? No, you don’t need to worry, every book ever written has basically one story line. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl again. Or here, if you want to be really clever, just reverse the sexes, lol! See? I’m brilliant! Anyway, just follow that formula and give your characters super-awesome names… oh, and find a really bright, sappy cover, don’t forget, because you need to be noticed in the marketplace, because since those first lucky folks struck gold, a whole boatload of others have joined the bandwagon… isn’t that typical?… and because of that, we have to stand out from the crowd by yelling “buy my book!” louder and louder, and by going to all our friends on Facebook and Twitter and telling them to download our stuff or they’re not even our friends really they’re just jealous… LOL!… and don’t forget to drop into as many groups as you can and tell complete strangers on the internet they better buy your book because it’s the only way anyone will notice it otherwise. No, no, they won’t get upset, it’s called Cap-it-al-ism and we’re adjusting to the marketplace. Everyone’s doing it.
Because, see, we’re undies, got it? That stands for undependent because we’re not dependent on the old record companies any more, that’s what I read on Mushable once, that Numbster changed the whole ballgame and now these Random Penguins and Simon Shyster types are wondering what happened while the undie revolution literally killed off all the literary agents and editors after torturing them with horrible mangled grammar and buried them in a warehouse in Brooklyn I think where all the mob bosses go to mourn the death of the Big Six, which is what they call all the old Sicilian families now they’ve lost the publishing wars. Or, I might have got that slightly wrong, but you get the gist, yeah?
It’s a whole new world and we can make our fame and fortune on the internet, better even than Snooks and The Situation because this is post-TV, baby, this is the newest, sparkliest thing.
Ha, all those people ever since high school calling me a bubblehead or a dialtone, you watch me get the last laugh, me an author and everything. ‘Cos yeah, I’m not even a writer, I’m gonna be an author, which means I am like the next level of writer, like when you go up a level in that War of the Worldscraft game my little brother plays, ROFL. Hey, wasn’t Tom Cruise in that movie? Anyway, you can eat my dust, Tom loser Cruise because I am going to set up my tent right there on the red carpet and the paparazzi will be begging me for upskirts of my sparkly vajayjay but I’m no headshaving wackjob like Brit became and they won’t ever get them, just the promise of them, because the secret is to milk it, and this chick’s fame is gonna last a lot longer than some stupid 15 minutes like that tennis player Andy Warthog used to say. I mean, think about it. Writers… sorry, authors…stay famous way longer than movie stars, even. Shakespeare, who I already mentioned, has been well known now for well over a hundred years, going back even before DiCaprio was born! Think about that! Ohmygod, ohmygod, so excited! *Claps enthusiastically*
* * * * *
A version of this post appeared on Indies Unlimited on March 23, 2010. David Antrobus also writes for Indies Unlimited and BlergPop. Be sure to check out his work there if you like what you read here.