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Not All That Twitters Is Gold
Big talk recently about a platform I abandoned years ago. We’ll see if the World’s Richest Man can succeed in shaking things up. For me? Meh. Let it go out like MySpace, GeoCities and CNN…
Important
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. ~Elon Musk
Elon is a genius. He is also a serial entrepreneur who likes to get things done.
Can he rattle the ultimate bird🐦cage?
Certainly, he has already rattled some cages by purchasing a majority stake in that company with the stated intent of bringing change.
What happens when you rattle a birdcage?
The poor little bird freaks the heck out. Wings flutter.
It flies around in circles. It’s still in a cage, after all.
If you’re unlucky, it might even get some feces on you.
That’s what happened when Elon rattled the cage.
When you do it to an actual bird, it’s mean.
When you do it to self-righteous Leftards in what they believe to be their sacred domain, it’s pretty funny.
Only time will tell if Elon can buy the whole birdcage.
Only time will tell what he’ll do with it if he does buy it.
Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
There are plenty of forces opposing him, but we have to keep in mind that he launched an electric car into outer space simply because he can.
What happens when he decides that what he’s doing is important?
I think a lot of people in the birdcage ought to dust off their resumes.
Considering what’s been going on in there, it stands to reason that their resumes are going to look like they’ve been lining the bottom of a birdcage.
People are predicting a lot of fallout from this move, one way or the other.
Guess we’ll see.
Given that he thinks that changing things is important, it should be interesting to see what happens if he succeeds in making the changes he has in mind.
🦇 But Does He Sparkle? 🦇
The Batman: HBO Max Streaming Date Confirmed – IGN Now
As much as everyone complains about short theatrical runs, movie theaters were teetering on the brink of disaster even before the whole pandemic situation.
As a byproduct of perpetual lockdowns, theatrical cycles have been cut drastically. Stuff comes to streaming services weeks after theatrical release rather than months after.
So much the 🦇ter.
The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson, will be on HBO Max next Tuesday and I can hardly wait.
Despite the 3 hour run time, it’s going to be beyond awesome if it lives up to all the hype from the videos I’ve watched on it so far. Gotta say, he looks pretty good for a guy who’s been around almost 100 years.
If you can’t wait to dig into Gotham’s latest capers, here’s a yuge basket of Easter Eggs to tide you over until it is finally 🦇 time.
THE BATMAN Breakdown: Every EASTER EGG and Hidden Reference You Missed + [SPOILER] Cameo Explained
Creative Control
I’ve never been that much of a money guy. I’m more of a film guy, and most of the money I’ve made is in defense of trying to keep creative control of my movies. ~George Lucas
As much as I admire Elon Musk for being preposterously wealthy and tirelessly creative, I have to hand it to George Lucas.
Not only did he make my childhood exciting with the original Star Wars trilogy and all the toys that came with it, but he inspired all of us with his decision to maintain creative control of the franchise. Well, until he sold it off to Disney so they could turn it into what he originally sought to protect it from becoming.
That’s one of the lures of traditional publishing, you see.
Everybody aspires to be the next, J. K. Rowling, Steven King, Dan Brown, whoever.
Everybody wants to join the illustrious and highly select minority of writers who make it through the publishing industry’s slush piles.
Everybody wants that hard won pot of gold at the end of the big houses’ rainbows.
Everybody wants the clout of having a big brand name printing their books, paying for the editors, proofreaders, cover artists, layout experts and distribution avenues.
Well, almost everybody. Around 2010, some people started a minor revolution.
Actually, self-publishing started well before 2010, but it became significantly easier to produce and sell ebooks at that point.
Traditional publishing outlets still own the majority of shelf space in book stores and libraries, but improvements in print on demand services is making it possible for self-publishers to get there, too.
So, it’s gotten to the point where choosing to foot the effort and the cost of self-publishing or to put the work in to try to find an agent who will try to find a willing publisher is working out to be fairly equitable.
There are tons of self-published authors with engaged communities of fans.
It’s not easy and it’s not cheap, but it is possible.
The question is, do you want your writing to be a job or a business?
As I said, George Lucas inspired me. It’s one thing to create something awesome that everyone loves. It’s another thing to maintain all the rights to that intellectual property so that you can benefit from the licensing royalties instead of getting pennies on the dollar for your work after, and only if, the total sales of your work exceeds the advance you were provided.
Also, going trad pub means that they’ve bought the rights to your idea and can compel you to make changes.
Not for me, brother.
Clearly, I have a long way to go, but I want to get there with my work continuing to be my work.
I’m in this for the long haul. This is my retirement plan. Not a slightly tarnished golden ticket to be won by putting up with an army of naysayers and finding that one path through the flurry of rejection letters.
Writing is hard enough without having to have a horde of people who are too busy to be bothered standing in your way.
I’m perfectly happy to have 3 books out for sale and another planned for Christmas All The Time under the Holiday Season Serial Romance label.
As I’ve mentioned before, these books are technically Sentinelsverse canon. They take place in the same world as my upcoming superhero series.
If I went trad pub, could I do that? Would they roll those books in? Would I legally be allowed to publish them in daily post form during the holiday season?
Probably not.
If I own the rights to all of it, I can do what I jolly well please. So, I shall.
If that makes things unmanageably expensive in the short term, so be it.
If you want to make an omelette, you need to break a few Easter Eggs.
I’ve already got my LLC and a number of business tools, so self-publishing is the way forward for me and my IP.
If only I wasn’t so tired…
That’s all. I hope the Easter 🐰 Bunny is extra-generous with the candy for you this year. Have a lovely weekend.