Writing, How to Become Famous, CEO
Dear Hank
April 28, 2006
Re: Writing, How to Become Famous, CEO
It’s been awhile but I’ve been busy. Certain events have led me to believe that a new strategy is needed to become famous as a writer and to support myself in the process.
The old strategy was to sit at home and write, send stuff out when it was ready and then hope that someone would publish it. This is really a silly way to go about things. This method suggests that someone will want to read you and that you are a fabulous author. To be read you must be famous; to be famous someone must notice you; to be noticed you must do something truly extraordinary.
Taking a page out of the recent political campaigns it is instructive to realize that it is not important to be versed on the issues or to have a good record or to be kind compassionate and caring; none of these things matter; what matters is that you are noticed. It’s best if you are noticed many times, briefly each time – little sound bites if you will.
The easiest way for an author to be noticed is to plagiarize. No one reads you at first anyway, but everyone will talk about you if you plagiarize.
The only problem is that it is viewed as a career ending move for an author. This may seem like a dilemma but I have come up with the perfect solution. I call it “How to Become Famous by Plagiarizing and not Ruin Your Career” Method.
Years ago I ran a kite contest. The local radio station would run a public service announcement about it only in the wee hours of the morning and that didn’t really help all that much. I mean people who fly kites are probably not up at 2am. However, the radio station would run announcements about rain delays and the like. I called the radio station the morning of my event and gave them an announcement that read something like this, “Despite the rain the bla-bla-bla kite festival will go on as scheduled at 10am on the grounds of the …”
A rain delay they would read. No one ever said, “Hey, there’s no delay here!” or “It’s not supposed to rain.” They just read the “rain delay” announcement. I guess people in radio are in a booth with no windows and don’t know whether it’s raining or not.
Hank, I’m going to publish my method and sell it on late night TV along with the “you can get rich from real estate” courses and the ab machines infomercials. I’ll make a fortune and then I can write full time.
You probably want to know how my method works, don’t you? No? Too bad, I’m going to tell you anyway. When I’m done I will have three books published, the first book is the “How to …” book that I sell on my infomercial that reveals “The Secret.”
Okay, here’s the secret. Step 1 – write a book and publish it. Self publish it and make up a fancy sounding publishing company name. Write this book under a pseudonym. We’ll call this Book Alpha.
Step 2 – write another book under the name you want to be known by in the literary world, publish it under another publishing company name. We’ll call this Book Beta.
Here’s the important part. Use the same notes and outline for both books: change the names and most of the book but make sure you copy a few lines VERBATIM from Book Alpha. This is very important because that constitutes plagiarism.
Step 3 – Have press releases for both books and send them out. Book Alpha should have been out in the market for 6 to 18 months before Book Beta’s release. Make sure there appears to be no connection between the two publishing firms, invent names for the CEOs of both companies as well as VPs of marketing and what not.
Step 4 – Have the VP of marketing of firm Alpha disclose that their author has been copied and your firm will be suing firm Beta and the author of Book Beta.
Step 5 - Have the Beta firm deny any plagiarism and have author book Beta admit to reading Book Alpha and being a big fan of author Alpha but in no way did Beta author copy anything from Book Alpha.
Step 6 – Several rounds of accusations and recriminations should go back and forth. Hopefully, someone will listen and pick up the story. One of the two books should sell and someone should become famous and rich. Seeing as how you are the only person involved in this plan it should be you.
Here’s the final idea for the day. How to survive while waiting to become rich and famous as an author. This is easy. Buy a share in a bunch of different companies so you get their annual reports and an invitation to their annual stockholders’ meeting. At the meeting nominate yourself for Board of Directors, CEO and any other position that the stockholders can elect.
One of two things will happen, either you will get elected or you won’t. If you get elected they pay you. If you don’t get elected then start making all sorts of proposals from the floor. You will quickly be known as a troublemaker. If it’s one thing a business doesn’t like it’s trouble.
After attending several annuals meetings of different companies your name will get around. You can then contact a company ahead of time and let them know you will be at their annual meeting. They have a choice: they can offer you a position such as CEO or member of the board of directors or they can “retire” you immediately with a golden parachute.(The former president of Exxon got 140 million a year as retirement, that would be acceptable.) If that doesn’t work see how many of your books they’ll buy.
I gotta go.
Later
Rick-Boy
April 28, 2006
Re: Writing, How to Become Famous, CEO
It’s been awhile but I’ve been busy. Certain events have led me to believe that a new strategy is needed to become famous as a writer and to support myself in the process.
The old strategy was to sit at home and write, send stuff out when it was ready and then hope that someone would publish it. This is really a silly way to go about things. This method suggests that someone will want to read you and that you are a fabulous author. To be read you must be famous; to be famous someone must notice you; to be noticed you must do something truly extraordinary.
Taking a page out of the recent political campaigns it is instructive to realize that it is not important to be versed on the issues or to have a good record or to be kind compassionate and caring; none of these things matter; what matters is that you are noticed. It’s best if you are noticed many times, briefly each time – little sound bites if you will.
The easiest way for an author to be noticed is to plagiarize. No one reads you at first anyway, but everyone will talk about you if you plagiarize.
The only problem is that it is viewed as a career ending move for an author. This may seem like a dilemma but I have come up with the perfect solution. I call it “How to Become Famous by Plagiarizing and not Ruin Your Career” Method.
Years ago I ran a kite contest. The local radio station would run a public service announcement about it only in the wee hours of the morning and that didn’t really help all that much. I mean people who fly kites are probably not up at 2am. However, the radio station would run announcements about rain delays and the like. I called the radio station the morning of my event and gave them an announcement that read something like this, “Despite the rain the bla-bla-bla kite festival will go on as scheduled at 10am on the grounds of the …”
A rain delay they would read. No one ever said, “Hey, there’s no delay here!” or “It’s not supposed to rain.” They just read the “rain delay” announcement. I guess people in radio are in a booth with no windows and don’t know whether it’s raining or not.
Hank, I’m going to publish my method and sell it on late night TV along with the “you can get rich from real estate” courses and the ab machines infomercials. I’ll make a fortune and then I can write full time.
You probably want to know how my method works, don’t you? No? Too bad, I’m going to tell you anyway. When I’m done I will have three books published, the first book is the “How to …” book that I sell on my infomercial that reveals “The Secret.”
Okay, here’s the secret. Step 1 – write a book and publish it. Self publish it and make up a fancy sounding publishing company name. Write this book under a pseudonym. We’ll call this Book Alpha.
Step 2 – write another book under the name you want to be known by in the literary world, publish it under another publishing company name. We’ll call this Book Beta.
Here’s the important part. Use the same notes and outline for both books: change the names and most of the book but make sure you copy a few lines VERBATIM from Book Alpha. This is very important because that constitutes plagiarism.
Step 3 – Have press releases for both books and send them out. Book Alpha should have been out in the market for 6 to 18 months before Book Beta’s release. Make sure there appears to be no connection between the two publishing firms, invent names for the CEOs of both companies as well as VPs of marketing and what not.
Step 4 – Have the VP of marketing of firm Alpha disclose that their author has been copied and your firm will be suing firm Beta and the author of Book Beta.
Step 5 - Have the Beta firm deny any plagiarism and have author book Beta admit to reading Book Alpha and being a big fan of author Alpha but in no way did Beta author copy anything from Book Alpha.
Step 6 – Several rounds of accusations and recriminations should go back and forth. Hopefully, someone will listen and pick up the story. One of the two books should sell and someone should become famous and rich. Seeing as how you are the only person involved in this plan it should be you.
Here’s the final idea for the day. How to survive while waiting to become rich and famous as an author. This is easy. Buy a share in a bunch of different companies so you get their annual reports and an invitation to their annual stockholders’ meeting. At the meeting nominate yourself for Board of Directors, CEO and any other position that the stockholders can elect.
One of two things will happen, either you will get elected or you won’t. If you get elected they pay you. If you don’t get elected then start making all sorts of proposals from the floor. You will quickly be known as a troublemaker. If it’s one thing a business doesn’t like it’s trouble.
After attending several annuals meetings of different companies your name will get around. You can then contact a company ahead of time and let them know you will be at their annual meeting. They have a choice: they can offer you a position such as CEO or member of the board of directors or they can “retire” you immediately with a golden parachute.(The former president of Exxon got 140 million a year as retirement, that would be acceptable.) If that doesn’t work see how many of your books they’ll buy.
I gotta go.
Later
Rick-Boy
posted by Rick Kinnaird at 5:12 AM
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