Microsoft Admits extremely viral Gears of War Ad was unintentional.

I never saw one mashup online, but I wanted to buy the game each time I saw the ad on TV. Frankly, to me the mashups aren’t nearly as interesting as the orginal ad, but it’s a great marketing story. And for such a gruesome (and fun) game I love that the hook is the simple poem at the heart of the “Mad World” lyrics. It’s haunting.

The Gary Jules cover on the ad is an edited down version of the orginal lyrics, roughly:

all around me are familiar faces
worn out places, worn out faces
hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
no tomorrow, no tomorrow
and I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
the dreams in which I’m dying
are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
when people run in circles
it’s a very very mad world…

The cover even hit #1 on iTunes.

I’m responsible for telling reporter Jeff Graham that not many people get rich writing computer books these days, but on the bright side I think what Scott Kelby has done as a Photoshop author and evangelist is inspirational and an excellent model for all sorts of authors who would benefit from thinking of ways to expand their platform and profile.

Jeff notes that I’m in New York, which is off by a fair hair

I remain the only literary agent in Hangtown, aka Placerville, aka Dry Diggins.

The Sacramento Bee has a great piece about Poetry Out Loud this morning, here’s the Link.

And here’s the website, Poetry Out Loud.

My favorite poem I know by heart? It’s a short one, Politics, by William Butler Yeats. Close to the end of his life he decided that it should appear last in his collected poems.

What a finish.

I’ve visited mine in the last month. I consider late fees “donations” and I’m a regular customer. Libraries are great for the book business because readers can painlessly discover new genres or authors. Here are a few of the writers whose books I’ve first borrowed from the library, only to buy many of their books: Bernard Cornwell, Robert Jordan, Barry Eisler, Daniel Silva, and John LeCarre.

This site is great for number geeks. It’s great for the number impaired too. Just following this I found myself lost in the Fibonacci Sequence.

Along those lines, I want to rep more math and popular science. If you have a proposal in either arena I’d love to see it.

And here are more great links from Wiley publisher Joe Wikert, who links to Michael Hyatt’s recent posts on publishing relationship management.

Joe’s post is here.

He’ll send you to Michael’s distinct posts on the qualities that make for an ideal publisher, author or agent. Quoting Joe, “If you’re an author in search of a good agent or publisher, use the (high profit, low maintenance) characteristics checklists Michael provides for each. Don’t forget to read the author checklist too… The whole series of posts ought to be required reading for any publishing newbie (and not-so-newbie).”

I agree. Here’s my own high profit, low maintenance mantra — If you want to succeed in this business (and make friends and influence people) you need to be a great partner, do great work, be dependable, be easy to work with, learn to resolve conflicts peaceably, and communicate!

Feel free to post your comments!

It took longer than planned to fix this and I have to thank Chad Smith at Spaceout Media for helping me out. Thanks, Chad!

Plenty of sites warn writers against fee-charging agents, it turns out that pet owners are furious about an alleged fee-charging pet talent agency, Hollywood Paws.

I love their mangled advertising copy: call for your free copy of “How to train your pet act like a movie star!” (yeah, drink this, take that, let me tell you this about the cat conspiracy.)

Apparently the firm delivered on the training but few of the pets were ever booked for actual shows. I’m not sure if the pet owners are in the right here but if they believed this was their doggie’s ticket to fame they should have thought a little harder.

You can find the article at the L.A. Times.

Per Fark, your dog is ready for his close-up.