Most Disturbing

So, my friend Harry's second book GAME OF CAGES is coming out, and he thought it might be a good idea to create a "book trailer" to help increase sales. You've probably seen James Patterson's book trailers on TV, and other writer's book trailers are on YouTube and Amazon and B&N and I've seen them play on airport monitors and once on a bar's TV!

When Harry mentioned this on his blog, one of his fans created this disturbing trailer and sent it to him...

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My plan was to post this today just for fun, but a strange thing happened yesterday - Harry had it posted on his blog, and his publisher - Random House - thought it was strange-funny and posted it on their website, and Publisher's Weekly saw it on the Random House site and thought it was strange-funny and posted it on the magazine's website and... well, I *joked* about the trailer going viral, and now it has!

The lesson in all of this? I think many of us (me included) think "I can't do that because I do not have the money, or do not have the resources, or do not have the connections" and we do nothing. Mistake! Just do it. Do it even if it's silly. Do it, even if it has no chance to succeed - because we don't know what will succeed and what will fail.

There's a guy on a message board who says he has a script with a great idea that he is passionate about... but he thinks it may be a tough sell. Though I am in favor of considering the odds before you write the script, if you *have* considered the odds and still need to write the script? Write it! None of us has a crystal ball. We can use our knowledge of the current market and successes from the recent past to help us figure out what has the best chance of selling or getting read or breaking in, but there are always exceptions and weird sales and what may be a dead genre today could be a hot genre in a decade - and you will already have a finished script ready for that market. If you have to write it, you have to write it. Hey, it may not sell, but every script is a step somewhere.

Harry's new book GAME OF CAGES comes out August 31st, but you can preorder it on Amazon now. But I should warn you - many scenes from this book trailer do not appear in the book. I know. It's kind of a cheat. Maybe Harry will put a dance number in the third book...

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Self Discipline - and why it is easier than self bondage.
Dinner: El Pollo Loco - breast & wing, corn, black beans.
Bicycle: Short. My legs were still throbbing Monday morning - I didn't want to ride at all, but figured I needed to teach them damned legs who's boss. They felt better by the time I rode home, so maybe that was a good plan.
Pages: FADE OUT - 102 pages total.