How I Am Stunning the World (Not!) with a Self-Published Book!

By Si Dunn

Online sites such as Lulu, CreateSpace and Amazon’s Digital Text Platform for Kindle now make it easy to publish your own book at affordable prices.

What is not easy is figuring out how to sell what you self-publish, particularly if it is fiction, without paying hundreds of dollars—and up--to marketing services.

Case in point: my newest book, Jump, a 110-page novella set in the 1960s and 1970s. Brief summary: "Gage Roberts, ex-sailor, is a man having problems in every port of his life as he jumps from job to job, place to place and relationship to relationship. Can he find love and happiness?"

More specifically, Jump is about a job-hopping newspaper reporter who suffers from bad war flashbacks and is not having much luck at love. The book is set in Denton and Dallas, Texas, as well as Hattiesburg, Miss., Atlanta, Georgia, and the Tonkin Gulf and South China Sea during the Vietnam War. This is not a book that Oprah or Random House or the New York Review of Books likely would leap on.

Indeed, only a few dozen readers so far have jumped on Jump, even though it is now available as a downloadable e-book, a Kindle book and a print-on-demand (POD) paperback book, and I regularly promote it on Twitter and in emails. (Here are links to the various editions: Paperback: http://bit.ly/3cxln / e-book: http://bit.ly/wml2M / Kindle: http://bit.ly/iF8Wo . The paperback edition is $9.95. The e-book PDF version is $1.99, and the Kindle version is about as cheap as a Dunkin Donut: $0.99.)

Jump sprang up from a creative writing assignment that I completed for English E-175, a Southern literature class offered online in spring 2009 by Harvard University’s Extension School. After the course was completed, I spent about a month expanding the 7,500-word short story into a 20,000-word novella.

I then made a few online searches for publishers seeking novellas and got no encouraging responses to queries. So I decided to make Jump my first foray into the world of online self-publishing. Specifically, I wanted to have online books and a paperback edition, but I did not want to carry and keep track of an inventory.

With online books such as PDF files and Kindle editions, there are no physical copies (although copies can be printed.) With a print-on-demand (POD) paperback, there also is no physical book until someone orders a copy or several copies. Then the book is printed and shipped to the purchaser. POD books are very handy, because you can buy one copy to hold and show off and a few extras to give away to friends or potential reviewers.

With my previous books, publishers always have taken care of the editing and printing details, as well as the marketing efforts. So, with Jump, I had to start from scratch. First, I copyrighted my manuscript online for $35 at the U.S. Copyright Office and purchased a single International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for $125 at R.R. Bowker’s isbn.org website. Most bookstores and online sales sites such as Amazon require an ISBN before they will list a book for sale. Some online book-publication sites will issue a “free” ISBN if you do not have one, but I prefer to own the number so I can maintain maximum control over what happens to my book. Jump’s ISBN is 978-0-615-31261-3.

Online book-publishing sites now typically offer free tools for creating and selling a self-published work. They take a percentage of each online sale, and they are more than happy to sell you printing and book marketing services, as well. I used Lulu.com’s free U.S. trade book template (6 inches by 9 inches) to format Jump in Microsoft Word. Then I converted the formatted and (this is vital: carefully proof-read) file into a PDF. I picked a generic cover file available on Lulu and uploaded the materials. Immediately, Jump was available to the world as a $1.99 e-book readable on computers and other devices that can display PDF documents. Each time someone buys it, I earn part of the price and Lulu keeps part of it.

I used a very similar PDF file of the book’s interior to set up a $9.95 paperback version of Jump at Amazon’s CreateSpace.com. Again, I picked a generic, free book cover from the choices online and uploaded my file. That same day, a proof copy of my book was available to order. I paid a small fee and postage and received the book a few days later. According to the return address, it had been printed in North Charleston, S.C.

While proofing the printed copy, I decided to make a few small changes, so I uploaded a new interior file and ordered another proof copy. A few days later, I received it, checked it and approved the book’s publication.

The presses did not immediately roll, of course. A print-on-demand book is only printed when someone orders one or more copies. I bought a few copies at an author’s discount off the cover price and received them a week later. Then I sent them out to some friends, bookstore owners, and possible reviewers.

Next, I used Amazon’s online self-publishing tools to try to generate a Kindle version of Jump. All I got, at first, was a discouraging jumble. Jump is not just straight text. It includes some poetry and a few abstract choices of typography. But things improved after I uploaded an HTML version of the Microsoft Word file. Then I spent a few hours downloading, proofing, correcting and uploading the Kindle file. I never got all of the formatting glitches cleaned up, but I finally decided it was good enough and approved the Kindle edition. It became immediately available.

Visions of a modest but steady trickle of sales quickly evaporated once my book was available at these three different different outlets. Indeed, nothing happened until I started sending out dozens of emails to friends and contacts letting them know how to find and buy my book. A few of them bought it—fewer than I thought.

Social media is supposed to be the hot new way to market books, but Twitter so far has been colder than a frozen mackerel as a marketing tool. Each new “tweet” about the book is like throwing an advertising flyer into a fast-moving river of data. It is quickly swept away and hardly seen by anyone. Meanwhile, post too many messages about your new book, and you will start getting complaints and losing some of your all-important “followers.” For example, someone in Australia recently chewed me out for posting information about Jump too many times, in her view. Then she “unfollowed” me.

Marketing via email also creates the risk of being branded as a spammer. When I have sent out updated emails about my book, I have gotten a few complaints and requests to be removed from email lists. Some of those complaining lately have been friends and professional contacts. Not good.

I have been told by many people that I should get my book information posted on Facebook. However, I do not want my face and details on Facebook. I recently got rid of MySpace and stopped using several other social media sites, because it is just too much work to try to keep up with them all and also keep updating and correcting my information. I would much rather spend the time writing and editing new materials.

Another bit of advice from web marketers is to create a video “trailer” for a new book and post it on YouTube. Allegedly, this is another hot way to sell books. It took a bit of work to slip together some of my old photographs and a few title cards in a manner that seems reasonably coherent. Then, using Windows Movie Maker, I created a movie file and posted it on YouTube. Here is the link. I have not recorded any spike in sales since posting it.

Finally, I keep seeing online messages and blog posts touting novellas as "the new novel” for busy readers. And I keep seeing book publishers setting up e-book divisions and posting e-book versions of hot sellers. At least one of my previous books, published by a conventional publisher, is now online as an e-book, and I do not get a penny from the sales.

About two months after self-publishing my book and entering this brave new, no-inventory world, I have not yet turned a profit on Jump. Numerous people have promised to purchase it, but the sales figures so far do not show much follow-through. A few friends quietly have admitted that the recession is still hurting them and causing them to watch every discretionary cent. That is one of the reasons I made the e-book version of Jump available for just $1.99 and priced the Kindle edition at only 99 cents.

(An amazing number of authors with online books apparently are so desperate to be read that they price their works at $0.00 – free. This, of course, makes it much harder for writers who need income from their works to set any kind of profitable, yet competitive, price. After Amazon’s commissions for the Kindle edition, for example, I would have to sell three million copies of Jump to hit the magic million-dollar mark. Dan Brown might be able to do it, but not Si Dunn.)

Short of hiring Lulu’s or Amazon’s book marketing services and going deeper in the hole, my only recourses are to start sending out news releases and review copies of the book and start buying advertising space, just like the old days of book publicity. Maybe I can even give myself some book-signing parties and offer free chips and dip.

Hey, anybody know Oprah?


Si Dunn is a book author, screenwriter, script doctor, book reviewer and editor.

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Art & Fear: Don't Let Worries Stop Your Creativity

The book Art & Fear is a compact work with only 122 pages. But it lives up to its tagline, "An Artist's Survival Guide," and to its official subtitle: "Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking."

The book's co-authors, David Bayles and Ted Orland, describe it as "a book about making art. Ordinary art." Their work is not aimed at the Mozarts of the world. Instead, it is written for "the rest of us" who strive to create works of art in many different forms on a daily basis.

"We're all subject to a familiar and universal progression of human troubles -- troubles we routinely survive,but which are (oddly enough) routinely fatal to the artmaking process," the co-authors note. The challenge for artists is to learn how to continue working and creating in the face of these unavoidable troubles. We must learn "how to not quit," the writers point out.

"Fear that your next work will fail is a normal, recurring and generally healthy part of the artmaking cycle," they emphasize.

"Artists quit when they convince themselves that their next effort is already doomed to fail. And artists quit when they lose the destination for their work -- for the place their work belongs."

Art & Fear seeks to help artists understand the sources of their fears. And it offers ways to try to overcome those fears and keep working even when an artist has no no clear idea what he or she is trying to create.

The $12.95 paperback is now published by Image Continuum Press, and it has been reprinted at least 19 times since it first appeared in 1994. Clearly, a lot of fearful artists have been reading it and recommending it to others.

-- Si Dunn

Texas Needs to Rework Its Movie, TV and Game Production Incentives

The Austin American-Statesman gets it, and that newspaper doggedly is staying on the Texas Legislature's case, even if many Texas politicians and entertainment people seem to be paying scant attention.

"State officials shouldn't be cast in roles of movie producers, scriptwriters or fact checkers, yet that's exactly where Texas legislators have put them," the Statesman editorialized in its July 3, 2009, edition.

A Republican-ramrodded clause enacted into law in 2007 forbids Texas state incentives to any kind of film, TV or game project that contains "inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion, as determined by the [Texas Film Commission] office, in a moving image project."

Apparently, only Utah takes a similar, thin-skinned approach to attempting to "protect" how that state and its people are portrayed in movies, TV shows and electronic games. The other 48 states apparently are happy just to encourage any and all entertainment companies to spend money inside their borders and let courts, lawyers and lawsuits handle any controversies arising over "accuracy" or portraying anyone "in a negative fashion."

The July 3 Statesman editorial stated: "Legislation that denies tax incentives to movies that put the state in a negative light puts Texas Film Commissioner Bob Hudgins in a situation that is as uncomfortable as it is untenable."

The Statesman called for the law to be rewritten "to remove the negative light criteria that Hudgins used to deny tax breaks to a movie about the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco."

The Waco movie project might have brought an estimated $30 million to the state economy and created dozens of jobs for Texas movie workers who now have to commute to Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico or other states to earn paychecks.

But the project about the disasterous 1993 Branch Davidian standoff in Waco should not be the only focus of opposition to the "negative fashion" clause in Texas' moving-image production incentives.

The bigger issue is how much the restrictions -- and the ongoing controversy over them -- may chill the overall movie, TV and game production business in the state.

Producers looking to spend money on entertainment projects that have Texas subjects or Texas settings may decide to go to other states, just so they can avoid all risk of running afoul of overly protective Texas legislators or a state film commission subject to political pressure and narrow-minded laws.

After all, with current movie, TV and game technology, "Texas" can be created almost anywhere. (Remember the controversy over the Civil War movie Cold Mountain, which partially was shot in Romania, with Romanian army troops serving as "Yanks" and "Rebs" and the Carpathian Mountains doubling as North Carolina?)

Some opponents of the Texas Film Commission ruling, including this writer, have voiced opinions that the Waco movie would be a work of fiction, no matter how truly "based on real events" it is, and the Texas Film Commissioner thus has been tasked by state legislators to censor fiction.

As the Statesman and others have noted before, some of the most successful and enduring movies about Texas, including Giant and The Last Picture Show, have not portrayed Texas and Texans in a positive fashion. Neither have movies such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and TV shows such as Dallas. But Giant and Dallas particularly have brought tons of tourism dollars to Texas and are still infusing cash decades later. And other movies and TV shows, including the definitely inaccurate Walker, Texas Ranger, also will pay tourism and "image" dividends to Texas for many years to come.

"Tax incentives should be given to projects that will have a positive impact on the state's economy," the Stateman declared in its July 3 edition. "The criteria ought be clear, and producers should understand that not everyone is going to get an incentive. Decisions on incentives should be based on the economic benefit to the state -- not on someone's slippery notion of what's negative and what's not."

The Statesman gets it and is keeping the ball rolling. Now, do any of the leading lights within the Texas movie, TV and game industries get it, and are they doing anything to help get the "negative fashion" clause eliminated as soon as possible?

Texas entertainment jobs are on the line at a time when every new job definitely counts.

-- Si Dunn

Fiction Is as Fiction Does: The 'Waco' Movie Controversy Rolls On

One essential point –- fiction -- keeps getting missed as criticisms and free publicity continue for the screenplay for Entertainment 7’s Waco movie project.

No matter how “accurate” anyone thinks it should be, a screenplay –- any screenplay -- is a fabrication, a “play” for presentation on a “screen.” And any movie made from the screenplay will be even more of a fictional representation, once the director, actors, crew and post-production specialists have added their own contributions to the finished product.

The ex-FBI agent who lashed out at the screenplay on the front page of the June 24 Austin American-Statesman certainly is free to criticize the “accuracy” of how he thinks people, places and events are depicted in the script. However, anyone who witnesses or takes part in an event will have his or her own memories, interpretations and opinions of what happened -- or did not happen. Even if a million video cameras had recorded every moment of the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff from all sides and angles, there is absolutely no way to create a screenplay that could get the standoff “right” in every person's view.

A screenplay compresses people, places, things, images and circumstances into a stylized structure with three acts. A screenplay tells a story, and that story always is fiction, even when it is based on “real” events.

Even unscripted “reality” TV shows are unreal. They are just one more form of fiction (bad fiction).

Speaking of “real,” the real result of Texas' controversial "Ogden provision" (ironically named, since Utah is the only other state with a similar, thin-skinned restriction) is that State Sen. Steve Ogden of Bryan, Texas, can take credit for creating new moving-image industry jobs…in Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico and elsewhere. Those states, and almost any others including Utah, likely will have no qualms about hosting -- and profiting from -- movie, TV or game projects that portray “Texas or Texans in a negative fashion.”

Sen. Ogden got the "negative fashion" provision added to state law in 2007, the Austin American-Statesman says, "after controversy erupted around the Texas-filmed 2006 sports drama "'Glory Road,' which tells the story of 1966 Texas Western Miners, and, according to school supporters, exaggerated racism at East Texas State University."

It has been noted in the Statesman and elsewhere that classic “Texas” movies such as Giant and The Last Picture Show and TV shows such as Dallas probably could not qualify for current production incentives, because they sometimes depict Texas and Texans “in a negative fashion.” Yet those productions continue to bring tourism dollars to Texas and expand the state’s aura around the world many years after they disappeared from theaters and networks.

The Ogden provision puts the Texas Film Commissioner in the unenviable position of trying to verify the “accuracy” of fiction, a writing form in which anything goes, and to use that "accuracy" as one of the criteria for judging “negative fashion.” Some call this censorship or a state legislative attempt to override free speech provisions in the U.S. Constitution. Others just call it "dumb" and "bad business." Texas has had dubious reputations since at least 1835, yet it has managed to do quite well for itself, thank you very much.

Any movie version of the Branch Davidian standoff would be fiction. The standoff could even be staged in a parallel universe on the planet Yargon in the year 3456. But if the script portrayed “Texas or Texans in a negative fashion,” the project still might not qualify for state production incentives.

At the very least, the continuing controversy over Waco may cause many movie producers to consider spending their money and shooting their “Texas” movies anywhere but Texas, so they won't run afoul of state restrictions and state lawmakers.

As long as the 2007 “negative fashion” restrictions stay in place, perhaps the state’s famous “Don’t Mess with Texas…” slogan should be expanded. It could now include “…or We’ll Diss Your Screenplay and Keep Making Our Moving-Image Workers Cross State Lines to Find Jobs.”

-- Si Dunn

Tips for Screenplay Beginners

Do not be fooled by how simple a screenplay appears on the printed page. You may spend up to a year or more writing and rewriting a feature-length script.

Be prepared to rework each new screenplay several times. And get feedback from others -- friends, relatives, strangers, actors, script readers -- before attempting to submit it to production companies, literary managers or agents. Most producers or managers or agents who agree to look at a script often will only give a writer one chance to impress them with that screenplay. You are competing with thousands of other writers in a very crowded marketplace.

Be very careful. There are many good script services and many good producers, managers and agents. And, there are some really bad ones with clever schemes to get your money. Check out everyone and every offer before writing any checks or giving up any credit card information. (Indeed, consider using PayPal.com instead of a credit card, for more protection.)

Consider writing short screenplays first. There is a steady market for screenplays in the range of five to 15 or 20 pages. Often, these are sought by first-time moviemakers. You may be paid little or nothing for your script, but getting a script produced and seeing it on a screen (movie, TV, mobile device, etc.) with your name after "Screenplay by..." is the Holy Grail for screenwriters.

Educated perseverance is a strong key to getting a screenplay sold or optioned. Keep learning as you keep trying. And be prepared to spend years on the process of writing and marketing screenplays.

DO NOT give up your day job thinking you are going to get fabulously rich from screenplays. Sometimes, it can take 10 years or longer to make any money at all from screenwriting.

After you finish your first screenplay, start revising it. And get started on your second script, third, fourth, and so on. Producers, agents and managers may not like your first script, but they often will ask: "What else do you have?" If you don't have another screenplay to offer, you may have missed a golden opportunity.

-- Si Dunn

Waco and Branch Davidians Cited by Iran's Supreme Leader

According to "The Lede," the New York Times blog, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has cited the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, Texas, as a reason for rejecting American criticism of Iran's response to opposition protests.

In a translation posted by Iran's Press TV, Ayatollah Khamenei stated at the end of a recent speech:

"During the term of a previous US government, eighty people affiliated with the Davidian sect were burnt alive in their compound in Waco, Texas. For some reason these people were disliked by the then US administration. Eighty people were burnt in that building, how dare you talk of human rights?"

Clearly, the Ayatollah doesn't know much about the circumstances behind the Waco standoff and its tragic outcome, just as he doesn't seem to understand much about why so many of his own people keep clammoring for fair elections and greater freedoms.

Many Americans, of course, don't know or remember much about the Waco standoff, either. One recent attempt in Texas to make a movie about the events apparently was stalled when it ran afoul of a particular clause in Texas' state incentives for moving image productions. That clause does not allow awarding state production incentives to projects that depict "Texas or Texans in a negative fashion..."

Recent rumors were that Waco would be shot in Louisiana, Oklahoma or New Mexico, where there would be no restrictions against depicting "Texas or Texans in a negative fashion...."

-- Si Dunn

Poetry Book "Anchoring" Now Available from Lulu.com

Anchoring, my second book of poetry, is now available through Lulu.com. Anchoring is a collection of poems that previously appeared in a wide range of publications, such as Rolling Stone, the Texas Observer, the Denver Post and several literary magazines. My first book of poetry, Waiting for Water, is still available on Amazon.com.

-- Si Dunn

'Censorship' Issue Remains Alive in Texas Moving-Image Production Incentives

It's pretty much a cinch now that Entertainment 7's movie Waco will not be shot in Texas.

It could never pass the Republican-inspired legislative clause that denies Texas state incentives to any kind of film, TV or game project that contains "inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion, as determined by the [Texas Film Commission] office, in a moving image project."

There wasn't much "positive fashion" for Texas or Texans in the 1993 shootout and standoff that left more than 80 Branch Davidians and law enforcement officers dead.

Louisiana appears to be the leading site candidate for Waco now, unless New Mexico or Michigan or some other state with strong incentives makes a concerted effort to grab the $30 million project.

Meanwhile, criticism of the Texas Film Commission's decision continues to float up in a few places. Here is one disappointed blogger's recent comments on the controversy.

Whether the producers of Waco formally applied for state incentives or not (as some of the producers' critics have stated), the controversial "negative fashion" clause remains in effect.

How long will it be before it rears up again and bites Texas' long-suffering moving-image workers on the butt? (Many of them, of course, were hoping to work on Waco.)

Many producers and production companies are now aware of the "negative fashion" restriction. They may not wish to run afoul of moralistic Texas legislators and a Texas Film Commission that has to follow the law and also rely on those same Chamber of Commerce-minded politicos for funding.

Almost any movie that can, or will ever, be made about Texas and Texans is going to come face to face with a plethora of "negative fashion" issues. And almost any other state in the nation is going to be more than happy to host a movie, TV show or game project that Texas officialdom doesn't want.

Texas' new moving-mage production incentives are helping bring some new projects to the state, and they are helping create some jobs. But the "negative fashion" restriction will end up costing the state a lot of money and a great deal of sorely needed good will in the moving-image industry.

Meanwhile, many Texas moving-image workers will continue commuting to Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico and elsewhere to work on projects that could have come to the Lone Star State, if Texas was more concerned about making money than "protecting" its image (an utter impossibility since about 1835 or so).

The production incentives laws need to be changed by the Texas Legislature to remove the "negative fashion" restriction. Or, they need to be challenged in court on First Amendment grounds that they abridge "the freedom of speech."

Either way, they need to go -- soon.


-- Si Dunn

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Si Dunn's second book of poetry, Anchoring, is now available through Lulu

'Waco' Movie Controversy Takes a New Texas Twist

One of the producers involved in the controversial movie project Waco has resigned her post as head of international sales for Entertainment 7 and contends that political "pressure from above" the Texas Film Commission caused state incentives to be denied to the $30 million production, which focuses on the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff that left more than 80 people dead.

Tara Wood adds that her work on the Waco project "as it pertains to assistance with funding" is complete, and she will return to Austin soon to focus on her Texas-based entertainment distribution company. Emilio Ferrari, head of Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based Entertainment 7, will remain the Waco project's lead producer, she says.

"It’s very unfortunate that Texas will not benefit from this project," she says. "I’ve lived in Austin for 15 years, going back and forth to L.A., and have been actively involved in trying to get the film community back on track. This is quite a blow. I was very encouraged when the most recent bump in incentives went through, because it actually allowed us to consider Texas to shoot. I’m shocked at this [Texas Film Commission] decision.

"Since Mr. Ferrari has made that ridiculous statement 'will never ever shoot in Texas,' I have left his company as head of international sales of Entertainment 7. I’ll be damned if I worked this hard to have someone be that reckless! I have a Texas-based distribution company and will put all my efforts there again."

Ms. Wood notes: "When this all went down, the last thing I wanted was to be associated with anything against Texas or the Texan people. My argument is against the language in the provisions [which bars portraying "Texas or Texans in a negative fashion" in any project seeking state production incentives]. In my opinion, this is blatant censorship, and ‘the state’ of Texas needs to take a step into this generation. The picture is going to be made with or without Texas, with another state reaping the benefits, most likely Louisiana (again). It was unfortunate that [Texas Film Commissioner] Bob Hudgins has been attacked in all of this. He made the mistake of taking the blame and becoming the state’s scapegoat by stating it was his decision. If you know Bob, you know he wouldn’t deny the Texas people the benefits. I firmly believe there was pressure from above."

-- Si Dunn

Texas Movie Incentives: The 'Censorship' Controversy Continues

Texans and outsiders hoping to produce moving-image projects (movies, TV shows, documentaries or video games) with state assistance are beginning to wake up to the realities of a legislative restriction that some now decry as "censorship."

A statute signed into law with little fanfare in June, 2007, established the following conditions under which the state-funded Texas Film Commission is supposed to review applications for grants to assist moving-image productions:

"The office is not required to act on any grant application and may deny an application because of inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion, as determined by the office, in a moving image project. In determining whether to act on or deny a grant application, the office shall consider general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the citizens of Texas."

The part causing the most debate and heartburn at the moment involves the language where the Texas Film Commission "may deny an application because of inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion, as determined by the office..."

Texas Film Commissioner Bob Hudgins recently denied a state grant to assist the production of a $30-million movie project called Waco, after some of the participants and observers of the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff that resulted in more than 80 deaths claimed its screenplay was "inaccurate" and portrayed some real-life characters in a negative light. Numerous Texas entertainment workers were hoping to get jobs on the Waco project. But one of the movie's producers has since stated that his company will "never ever" shoot a movie in Texas as a result of the ruling.

Some opponents of the Texas Film Commission ruling, including this writer, have voiced opinions that the Waco movie would be a work of fiction, no matter how truly "based on real events" it is, and the Texas Film Commissioner thus has been tasked by state legislators to censor fiction.

After all, some of the most successful and enduring movies about Texas, including Giant and The Last Picture Show, have not portrayed Texas and Texans in a positive fashion. Neither have movies such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and TV shows such as Dallas. But Giant and Dallas have brought tons of tourism dollars to Texas and are still paying off decades later. And other movies and TV shows, including the definitely inaccurate Walker, Texas Ranger, also will pay tourism and "image" dividends to Texas for many years to come.

Texas may as well face the truth. The state's image has been less than angelic to the outside world since at least 1836, and there's just no way the Texas Legislature will ever be able to stuff that genie back into a Shiner beer bottle.

Here are links to some of the ongoing discussions voicing criticism or approval of the Texas Film Commission action:


The Austinist.com

The Austinist.com

The Austin American-Statesman

The Texas Legislature currently is bogged down in a pile of partisan political battles over voter ID cards and other issues, and its session will end soon. Thus, the "in a negative fashion" restriction may keep generating controversy--and negative light for Texas politicans' lack of enlightenment--and keep causing job losses for many months or years to come.

-- Si Dunn

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Texas Movie Incentives = Texas Movie Censorship

"We can tell the story, 'The Scoundrels of Texas.' We have scoundrels. As long as we portray our scoundrels accurately, then those projects, you know, will be able to be included in the program," Texas Film Commissioner Bob Hudgins recently told News 8 Austin.

Hudgins was responding to questions about his recent decision to deny state assistance to Entertainment 7's movie project Waco, on the grounds that events depicted in the script did not accurately portray what the Branch Davidians and others said happened during the violent 1993 standoff near Waco that left more than 80 people dead.

Of course, who can judge what is "accurate" and what is not? One hundred people watching one incident will see it one hundred different ways and can create one hundred totally different accounts of what they just witnessed.

Movies -- unless they are billed as documentaries -- are fiction, and in fiction, anything goes. Nothing is "real."

As Austin actor and writer Curtis Wayne has pointed out: "Did The Sopranos paint New Jersey in a good light? Do you think NJ would vote 'yes' on incentives to have it shot there, knowing what they know now? Of course they would. This is silliness."

The provision invoked by Texas Film Commissioner Bob Hudgins goes beyond "silliness," however. State legislators have imposed outright censorship conditions that deny incentives to moving image projects which portray "Texas or Texans in a negative fashion."

Texas has long prided itself on being big, bold, strong and independent. But in this ridiculous case, it is attempting to protect itself in the same manner that a small-town Chamber of Commerce might try to guard the business image of its population-10,000 burg.

I repeat, movies are fiction, and in fiction, anything goes -- including "factual" inaccuracies and Texas buffoons and crooks. Was the TV show Dallas an accurate description of Big D, Texas and Texas oil tycoons? Yee-haaa! That's a big NO, cowboy. Has the fact that Dallas stayed on the air for 13 years, until 1991, somehow stopped or hurt Dallas-related tourism? No, people still show up from all over the world eager to see Southfork Ranch and other memorabilia of the series.

Texas definitely has not been hurt by this bald-faced bit of fiction. Indeed, the state has made a ton of money from it and equally inaccurate shows such as Walker, Texas Ranger. And Texas could keep making tons of money from Texas movies and TV shows, even those that criticize the state and mock the attitudes and mannerisms of the citizenry. We can be embarrassed all the way to the bank.

The Waco movie project had an estimated budget of $30 million, much of which would have been spent in Texas. The production company also wanted to shoot another movie in the state. Now, according to Entertainment 7's Emilio Ferrari, his company will "never ever" shoot a movie in Texas.

Quite a few Texans, some of them currently unemployed, were counting on those movie jobs, and now they won't be working. The production company also will not be buying food and supplies and renting equipment in Texas. This is a much bigger embarrassment than enduring 120 minutes of celluloid fiction showing federal agencies and Waco's Branch Davidians ending up in a violent shootout, standoff and deadly fire.

If the Texas Legislature has any sense at all (and, quite often, that is strongly questioned by Texas voters), the "in a negative fashion" clause should be stripped out of the Texas moving image incentives statutes just as soon as possible.

-- Si Dunn

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"Waco" Production Company on Texas: "We Will Never Ever Shoot in That State"

By Si Dunn

Emilio Ferrari, described on the Internet Movie Database website as "one of Hollywood's busiest independent producers," is hopping mad. Ferrari, an executive with Entertainment 7 in Sherman Oaks, Calif., is vowing to "never ever shoot" another movie in Texas.

The Austin American-Statesman reported May 20 that Texas state tax incentives have been denied for Entertainment 7's movie project Waco because of alleged "factual inaccuracies" in the script.

Waco focuses on the violent 1993 standoff between federal law enforcement agencies and the Branch Davidians led by David Koresh, at a compound near Waco, Texas.

Texas State Film Commissioner Bob Hudgins rejected the incentives, telling the American-Statesman that his decision was based on restrictions put into place in 2007 by the Texas legislature. A provision (introduced by Republican State Senator Steve Ogden) restricts filmmakers taking tax incentives from depicting "Texas or Texans in a negative fashion" in their productions.

Hudgins told the American-Statesman that his decision to deny the incentives to Entertainment 7 was "not censorship at all," and he added that Entertainment 7 is welcome to shoot Waco in Texas--without state financial assistance.

But Emilio Ferrari, in an email sent to Dateline: Oblivion from the Cannes Film Festival, sees things much differently:

"First of all, for the record, the script on the story of what happened in Waco is very accurate. Years and years of research and our co-producer is someone whose Waco doc won an Emmy and was nominated for an Academy Award. Also, it's pure bullshit what the head of the film commission said about the script having factual inaccuracies. He has had the script since last year and loved it and couldn’t wait for us to come there and shoot and was helping us with locations, etc. And now, suddenly, the script is no good, like he is amazingly now an expert on Waco based on his years and years of research. Come on, give me a break. We all know what’s going on here. It's politics in full force. And...it's pure censorship and political pressure," Ferrari stated.

"We were also going to bring another film to shoot there (Texas) with a studio behind it, but now, after all this, we will never ever shoot in that state. And we shoot a lot of films."

This news likely will be disappointing to many who work in Texas' struggling moving images industry. Hopes for new productions and new jobs have been running high since Gov. Rick Perry signed Texas' new production incentives legislation into law April 23 at Robert Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios in Austin.

The Waco movie was expected to create numerous production jobs in Texas.

But as Ferarri told the American-Statesman, "It's not a movie about Texas. It's about an incident that happened there, but it could have happened anywhere."

In this case, after the incentives rejection, Waco very likely will now be filmed "anywhere"--except Texas.

-30-

Two Moments in Austin (Photos)

Texas Senate in Action (April 29, 2009)
(Photograph copyright 2009, Si Dunn)

"Record Low" Temperature (May 15, 2009)
(Photograph copyright 2009, Si Dunn)

A True (and Truly Good) Tale of Newsprint and Murder

WAR OF WORDS: A True Tale of Newsprint and Murder
By Simon Read
(Union Square Press, $24.95)

You think the newspaper business is tough now? Competing newspapers in mid-19th-century San Francisco sometimes fought each other—literally—for circulation and advertising supremacy in a rough-and-tumble city fueled by Gold Rush money, whiskey and gambling and ruled by corruption, vigilantes, violence and scandal. Publishers were beaten or murdered. Editors sometimes faced off with dueling pistols. Mobs angry at articles or editorials surged into newspaper offices and destroyed everything in sight. And, notes author Simon Read in War of Words, “Reporters roamed the streets like rival gang members, many with the reassuring weight of a sidearm against the hip.”

At times, a half dozen or more newspapers battled each other for readers, and there was plenty to write about—or gossip about—in mid-19th-century San Francisco.

“Murder was the news industry’s bread and butter in those early days,” the author writes. “A tale of killing always received priority coverage and was seldom cut or held to make room for copy of a less dramatic nature….In the 1800s, much like today, sex and violence sold newspapers.”

Right in the middle of this newsprint melee, the famed (and recently financially imperiled) San Francisco Chronicle was born “as a throwaway vehicle for theater advertisements and drama critiques” known as the Daily Dramatic Chronicle. It was founded by two brothers, Charles and Michael de Young, members of “a family with an obscure history draped in sordid rumor.”

The de Youngs, however, proved to be adept and lucky businessmen, Simon Read points out in this engaging, entertaining and enlightening historical portrait of San Francisco journalism and the controversial personalities behind it. The de Young brothers paid back their publication’s startup loan just one week after their debut issue on Jan. 16, 1865. They also kept costs low by doing all of the newsgathering, typesetting and publishing themselves. They even gathered up and recycled old issues in clever ways that brought in a little extra money and helped build up their publication’s reputation.

The Daily Dramatic Chronicle soon became a magnet for writers such as Mark Twain, Bret Harte and others who later would become famous. It also got an unexpected circulation boost from a tragic event in Washington, D.C., when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The brothers’ newspaper normally went to press after the city’s morning papers had published and long before the afternoon papers appeared. The Daily Dramatic Chronicle was able to hit the streets with fresh headlines and quickly follow up with extra editions as stunned people scrambled to get the latest news about Lincoln’s death. Meanwhile, mobs attacked and destroyed some of San Francisco’s newspapers that had taken pro-Southern or anti-Lincoln stances.

After these dramatic events, and now with fewer competitors, the newspaper kept growing and later was renamed the San Francisco Chronicleon Aug. 16, 1869.

But new troubles and controversies were just beginning for what would become San Francisco’s premiere daily newspaper. Simon Read’s new book takes the reader deep inside the turmoil of the San Francisco Chronicle’s early history as a war of words spirals out of control between Charles de Young and Isaac Kalloch, a mayoral candidate and well-known “hellfire preacher” with a scandalous reputation. One man soon would shoot and almost kill the other, and a son of the survivor later would retaliate by shooting and killing his father’s assailant.

The author, a former Bay Area reporter who has written three other books, has done an excellent job of mining colorful quotes and details from newspaper articles, periodicals, magazine articles, and court transcripts from “the time in question.”

WAR OF WORDS: A True Tale of Newsprint and Murder definitely lives up to its title and subtitle.

-- Si Dunn

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How I Made a Science Fiction Short Movie at My Kitchen Table

One weekend, I really, really wanted to make a no-budget science-fiction short movie set in outer space. But all I had available was a kitchen table, a digital video camera, a webcam, a few still photographs of the moon, some ski clothes, several pieces of outdated electronics gear, some Christmas lights, and the ability to generate cheesy sound effects and weird music.

Obviously, I couldn't go into the "future" with such a motley collection of junk. I would have to create a short movie that is set in the fairly recent past. Some of the electronics gear had been new in the late 1970s. So that became the timeline: a Seventies' sci-fi tale.

I would boldly go where I had no other choice to go.

One other problem: I had no cast and no crew. I would have to do it all myself, including acting. And, naturally, I look nothing at all like someone who would get sent into space. (Except, perhaps, to get rid of me.)

But, I persisted. I piled up all of the junk on the table and stared at it for a long while (wondering if I was insane). Then I started scribbling a little script.

Maybe, I decided, if I arranged the electronics gear a certain way and used the cheap little webcam to capture some video images, I could simulate being in space. Sort of?

So that's what I did. First, I shot some short, closeup clips of the electronics gear, using a cheap little Canon ZR-500 miniDV camera. Then I stacked the gear up on the table.

To simulate a camera in a space capsule, I used a very basic webcam and tried to pretend to be an astronaut while wearing some old ski clothes. I did not, of course, receive any Academy Award nominations for my performance.

The only way I could simulate weightlessness was to use a radio microphone with a fairly stiff, coiled cord. I could shove it into view from just off camera and catch it just as the coiled cord lost tension and the microphone seemed to float toward my hand.

The moon and Earth pictures were public domain. I printed out some moon pictures and used a digital still camera to create closer and closer views of the surface--to simulate a porthole view of falling from orbit.

Next, I recorded a variety of electronic and atmospheric sound effects (such as static), using a simple tape recorder held in front of the speakers of shortwave radios.

Finally, I combined audio and video tracks in Windows Movie Maker and created the cards for titles, credits and story text. The music is something that I made up by recording a few sounds, slowing them down, playing them in reverse and looping them.

The resulting short movie, Will, has brought in a few good comments and emails since I posted it on YouTube about two years ago. Some people have even suggested that I should make some new episodes in which the astronaut has survived the crash and is now stranded on the moon.

But, to be completely honest, my career as a kitchen-table movie astronaut probably is over. I can't afford enough green cheese to build the necessary sets.

--Si Dunn

Hanging out with Robert Rodriguez and Gov. Rick Perry

Well, actually, I was just one of several hundred people standing in a big room at Troublemakers Studios in Austin, April 23. We were watching filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and Texas Governor Rick Perry enjoy a well-earned Big Moment in the media spotlight as the Governor signed legislation that will boost moving image production in the Lone Star State.

Gov. Perry came to Troublemakers Studios in a Texas-sized white limousine that had a movie camera as its hood ornament. He's also one of the few U.S. governors who belongs to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG)--which is a bit funny, since Texas is a right-to-work state and Gov. Perry, a social conservative, is no big fan of unions and guilds.

He got ringing applause, however, from the gathered crowd of Central Texans who work in the movie, TV, game and related entertainment businesses, because the newly enacted incentives promise to bring more projects -- and jobs -- to Texas.

The legislation was spearheaded by State Rep. Dawnna Dukes (D-Austin). She said the new law, which went into effect immediately, will give the Texas Film Commission more flexibility when deciding on the size of grants that it can award to movie, TV or game production companies. Approximately $20 million is now in place, and another $40 million in funding is now being debated as separate legislation in the Texas House and Senate. "We don't believe in outsourcing (entertainment industry jobs), especially to Louisiana and New Mexico," she said.

"Oh, we're gonna be busy!" Gov. Perry commented before he sat down to sign the legislation. " He noted that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal recently came to Austin for a visit, and Perry told Jindal: "All those movies you've been having in Louisiana? They're gonna be coming to Texas!"

Gov. Perry added that "the moving image industry has brought in more than $1.2 billion to Texas over the past 10 years. I promise you, this legislation is gonna blow that figure away."

One bystander, San Antonio lawyer David Yanez, remarked before the event that he is changing his focus from state politics to becoming an entertainment attorney. "People want to film in Texas," he said. But he cautioned that states cannot keep trying to outdo each other with production incentives. Before long, the incentives playing field will be more or less level. When that happens, state film commissions may have to create "alliances of states" in their area. In other words, rather than compete with each other, Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico and possibly other states may have to team up to compete with California and other areas of the U.S. for movie, TV and game projects.

After the event, I tried to meet Robert Rodriguez, but his line of admirers was too long, and he appeared anxious to move on and get back to work. The Governor also was busy shaking many hands. Anyway, I'm not one of Gov. Perry's political fans; I think he has been wrongheaded on many issues, including trying to refuse federal money to help the unemployed in Texas.

But this event was good news for Texas' beleaguered entertainment industry. I give full points to all who helped push the legislation through--and to the governor who encouraged it and signed it.

Maybe he'll get a few plum movie parts after Kay Bailey Hutchison defeats him in the governor's race in 2010.

-- Si Dunn

Remember When Information Technology Was Hot, Hot, Hot?

I came across a very telling article recently while cleaning out some old piles of my journalism. In January, 1999, I co-authored a piece, "IT careers for sale," that appeared in Computer User magazine. The subhead stated: "If you have computer skills and a pulse, recruiters want you on the IT front lines."

Remember when information technology (IT) was hot, hot, hot? Clinton and Gore were in office in those days, and the overheated dotcom boom was still underway.

Here is how the article began:

Chances are, you've gotten their calls. And their emails. And their faxes, postcards and letters. You've seen their big "Now Hiring!" signs hanging on the sides of buildings. You've read their billboards, heard their radio commercials, even felt their earnest handshakes and gotten their business cards at professional association social gatherings.

Lately, you may even have noticed their pitches in a most unlikely place: On monthly statements from some of your credit card companies.

It's a recruiters' jungle out there, and you, friend, are the big game they are stalking, even if you don't want to be hunted.

Blame it on demand versus supply. There are now many more information technology jobs than there are computer professionals to fill them. The Information Technology Association has estimated that one in 10 computer-related jobs currently is going begging--that's almost 350,000 vacancies.

Desperate companies are searching far and wide, recruiting on the Internet, on college campuses, at rock concerts and in distant lands. They are offering referral bonuses, signing bonuses and bigger bounties to outside recruiters. Some even are raiding their competitors' talent--or at least being accused of it...."

Sadly, those days likely are long gone now. But that seems to be how the American economy works: in cycles of boom and bust.

A decade later, in troubled 2009, if you have computer skills and a pulse, you likely are unemployed, underemployed or in fear of losing your job very soon.

It may be time now to recruit yourself and turn your computer skills and job experiences into self-employment. If you still have a job or need more income, you can start something on the side and test the waters of small business. If you are unemployed and standing now with others in long lines to compete for one, two or a few jobs, it may also be time to recruit yourself and create your own job.

It's not easy, but if you have computer skills and a pulse, you can do it. You might even have to do it if the economy doesn't pick up soon.

Operators, unfortunately, are not standing by.

--Si Dunn

#

Social Media Is Dead -- And You Killed It

That's right. Social media (or Social Media, as its practitioners and aficionados so importantly emphasize it) is dead.

You have killed it by overdoing it--day and night, endlessly posting and re-posting. You now stay online so much that you have become antisocial in real life.

Families? Friends? Co-workers? Don't need 'em.

You tweet, therefore you are. You blog, therefore you matter. And if you can just keep it up, hashtagging often enough in one 24-hour span, you can create the illusion that you are living an exciting, important, digirati life.

Those now jumping into social media soon will discover that they have arrived too late. Social media has become oh, so two hours ago.

The New Hot Thing is...Antisocial Media (ASM).

We in ASM tweet just to tweet (and don't you "@" or "DM" or "RT" me, you rat bastard. I'm too busy posting new tweets to read anything or respond). We blog because we can--and we purposely burn up many hours in the process, so the real people around us will get less and less of our time to waste.

Who needs actual social interactions when we can flood the digital universe with ASM?

Don't answer that. And don't attempt to argue with me. Just post your own stuff and don't expect me to read it. The true practitioner of ASM doesn't even read his or her own postings.

My new book, Antisocial Media: Hashtags in Hell (LOL), will be published soon. In the true spirit of ASM, I wrote it without reading it. I let no one edit it. And I will tolerate no reviews or questions about it.

Just click on the Amazon link, charge your credit card and forget about it. Instantly, you will become another expert in Antisocial Media, and you can publish your own book on "how to boost your ASM productivity." (Suggested title: "How I Got 8 Million Anti-Followers on Twitter in Five Seconds Flat.")

I won't read it, of course. I'll be too busy tweeting and blogging about the death of Antisocial Media and the coming of the Next Hot Thing: face-to-face, offline discourse and conversations (FFODAC). (Gasp!)

#

New Blog: Third-Chance Book Reviews

Why third-chance book reviews? Well, why not? Authors work hard to create their books -- sometimes one, two, three, or even more years. Then their books are published, put on display in bookstores, only to be unceremoniously yanked from the shelves a few weeks later to make way for newer books.

Meanwhile, newspapers and magazines are eliminating book reviews or tightening up on the number of reviews they publish, on paper or online, to try to cut costs as they struggle to survive. Thus, it is getting tougher and tougher for authors to get their books reviewed anywhere.

If your book doesn't get reviewed right away, it rarely gets a second chance. And after it has been on the market for a year or two, it has almost zero chance of getting reviewed, except on a book-review blog. These days, the shelf life of a book is much shorter than the time it takes to create it.

Hence, Third-Chance Book Reviews. It offers one more opportunity for a few books to get reviewed.

To be honest, I am an old-fashioned book reviewer who is now in mortal danger of becoming unemployed in the dwindling world of print media. After many years of reviewing books in newspapers, magazines and literary journals, I have started this book review blog as a means of self-defense. It also reflects my longtime desire to help keep books -- words printed on actual paper -- in front of readers.

Much of my bias, initially, will be on books about the American West and Southwest or written by authors who live in the American West or Southwest. These types of books have been my speciality for about 25 years.

But I intend to expand my coverage to any and all types of books that interest me and entertain me.

I will not review books that I dislike. I will only post brief reviews of books that I have found interesting and entertaining and think others might like, too.

Likewise, I won't post "paid" reviews. If a particular book grabs your interest, I hope you will click on the link posted in the blog. It will take you to Amazon.com. If you buy the book via that link, I will make a few cents from the transaction. If you don't like that arrangement, just go to Amazon.com, search for the title and make your best deal.

Thank you in advance for visiting Third-Chance Book Reviews, and thank you for considering some of the books I have chosen to review.

Si Dunn
Third-Chance Book Reviews
Sagecreek Productions LLC

Volunteer to Fight for the U.S. Economy

Things now are officially so bad in the Great Recession that those of us near the bottom of the economic food chain need to start doing something--anything!--to try to fuel a recovery from the bottom up.

President Obama and the Democrats on Capitol Hill--with almost no constructive help from the Republicans--are struggling to do what they can, within the painfully slow, inefficient and chaotic framework of U.S. politics.

Meanwhile, many among us are suffering and getting their butts kicked. We need to try to help them, today.

Can you start a business, no matter how small? Can you create a job, even part-time, temporary or something for a consultant to do? Can you do it today?

Will you do it today?

Can you buy something extra? (It almost doesn't matter what: a latte, a Lamborghini, a Lava soap bar, a lava lamp, a leg waxing, a loaf of bread.) Almost anything you buy can help save or create a job. Can you buy something today?

Will you do it today?

Can you use and pay for somebody's service? Get the gutters cleaned, get a bicycle repaired, get a haircut, get a pizza delivered--today?

Will you do it today?

Can you donate money or food to a food bank and clothes, unneeded tools and other useful items to Goodwill, the Salvation Army and other organizations and agencies in your community? Can you do it today?

Will you do it today?

And don't forget churches, whether you attend or not. Many churches now are struggling to keep unemployed members, parishioners and strangers afloat even as they try to keep their own doors open, too. Can you donate a few bucks to one or more of them today?

Will you do it today?

Anything and everything we can comfortably afford to do needs to be done...today. Now. Immediately.

Do it today.

Start pushing the economic recovery from the bottom up and keep pushing. Do it today.

Maybe those at the pinnacle of the economic food chain soon will learn how to stop playing "gotcha" games (we can only hope) and start helping push recovery dollars downward where they are now desperately needed.

And maybe we'll all meet in the middle soon and hope things never get out of control like this again.

But it all starts by doing something today.

-- Si Dunn

Republicans Confirm Move to Parallel Universe

WASHINGTON (D:O) -- While their party leaders proudly unveiled the presentation folders for their details-to-follow "Road to Recovery" budget alternative, anonymous sources within the Republican Party quietly conceded today that the GOP soon will move "lock, stock and barrel of tax cuts" to a separate universe "where no one can ever again attack our plan as the 'Road to Ruin.'"

One source explained: "We're moving everybody and everything--within certain limits--to a much better world. It's a parallel universe where no one will ever have to pay taxes, and there are no pesky poor people, homeless veterans and unemployed middle-class families to gum up our strategies. It's a world open to those solid citizens who make $100,ooo and up, on a steady basis."

The name of the parallel universe, the source added, is still being debated within party circles.

"Some want to call it 'Rushmore,' and some want to call it 'Jindalville.'" A conference committee is attempting to come up with a compromise, another GOP source emphasized.

Not everyone likes the move, the second anonymous source conceded. "A number of Republicans who make less than $100,000 say they feel betrayed and may become Democrats. Or Libertarians. Or Communists. Their point is that they can't stay in the Republican Party if it insists on leaving them behind in this reality."

-- B.W. "Blanque" Page, Washington correspondent for Dateline:Oblivion.

-30-

The Republican Ticket from Hell

According to CNN Political Ticker, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is defending Republicans who want President Barack Obama to fail. He has joined conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh in wishing aloud that the President's efforts to rescue the American economy will flounder, so that millions upon millions of people will suffer and somehow, magically, sweep the G(NO!)P back into power.

So, there you have it: The G(NO!)P ticket in 2012 will be Jindal/Limbaugh or Limbaugh/Jindal.

Either way, it will be the political ticket from hell.

Gov. Jindal and radio-mouth Limbaugh keep talking past the point that if the President's efforts fail, the havoc set in motion by the Bush era (and the Bush errors) will leave the nation severely damaged, and much of the resulting destruction will be directly tied to, and properly blamed upon, Republicans' obstructionism and resistance in this time of crisis.

"NO!" is not an economic plan. But it will look great on campaign bumperstickers: "Bobby & Rush in 2012? Just Say NO!"


-- Si Dunn

Health Insurance? Help Us Afford It

The Associated Press has reported that the health insurance industry is offering "for the first time to curb its controversial practice of charging higher premiums to people with a history of medical problems."

If you've ever had a medical problem, then lost a job or started a small business and tried to buy individual health coverage, you likely have run into this little problem:

If you need it, you really can't afford it.

Republicans have long pushed for "market solutions" to the health insurance problem. And the "solutions" the market keeps delivering tend to be priced somewhere beyond sky-high.

According to the AP article posted by CBS News, "[a]bout 7 percent of Americans buy their coverage as individuals, while more than 60 percent have job-based insurance."

The percentage for individuals likely would be much higher if monthly premiums for health insurance did not rival or exceed mortgage payments and car payments. Meanwhile, people with employer-provided health insurance are paying sharply higher premiums and co-payments and getting squeezed hard, too.

"The offer here is to transition away from risk rating, which is one of the things that makes life hell for real people," health economist Len Nichols of the New America Foundation public policy center told the AP. "They have never in their history offered to give up risk rating."

According to the AP report on the CBS News site, insurers hope to head off the creation of a government insurance plan that would compete with them, something that liberals and many Democrats are pressing for.

The AP report did not mention that Republicans long have opposed government-sponsored health insurance plans, touting vague "market solutions," instead. These are the same "market solutions" that have helped keep many of the 47 million or so uninsured Americans priced out of the health-insurance market and in the "if you need it, you can't afford it" category.

The current offers from the insurance industry fall short in one very big category: small business, which creates the vast majority of new jobs in the American economy. Small businesses, under the new proposal, would have to keep paying higher premiums and deal with risk ratings. One sick employee could send premiums through the roof.

So the news on risk ratings seems to be significant, but now is not the time for the Obama Administration to ease off on its health-insurance plans. If anything, the White House needs to ratchet up its proposals and keep holding the health-insurance industry's feet to the fire.

-- Si Dunn

Is 65 the New 35?

My 65th birthday rolls around tomorrow, and I still feel as if I am 35. Or younger.

Inside my head, at least.

Yeah, some of my moving parts now grind, click and rattle. And I've had some issues that a few bits of surgery (okay, a couple of BIG bits) have been able to repair.

Life at 65 is a bit more of a chemical balancing act than I expected it would be. Pills for this, pills for that. Keep this down; keep that up. But, hey, the pills work, and life goes on. I remain full of ideas, ambitions, energy, drive, vitality--and even youthful stupidity, sometimes.

Some mornings when I drag (albeit more slowly) out of bed, I do joke that 65 is the new 64. Or the new 75. But inside my head, I still feel as if I am 35--or younger.

Tomorrow, I turn 65. And so what? I'm retired but still working part-time, mostly because I like having a small busisness. My wife still loves me. I love her madly, too. And my head and heart remain full of goals and curiosity and causes. And songs.

Life is good. Indeed, I think life at 65 is much better than it ever was when I was 35.


-- Si Dunn

Stimulating New Jobs: Where's the Leadership?

New York Times columnist Frank Rich got it exactly right when he stated:

"As the nation’s anger rose last week, the president took responsibility for what’s happening on his watch — more than he needed to, given the disaster he inherited. But in the credit mess, action must match words. To fall short would be to deliver us into the catastrophic hands of a Republican opposition whose only known economic program is to reject job-creating stimulus spending and root for Obama and, by extension, the country to fail. With all due deference to Ponzi schemers from Madoff to A.I.G., this would be the biggest outrage of them all."

Anger did rise, and it's still boiling up. There should be more job-creating stimulus spending now and more focus on the "real" people in the American economy: workers, mid-level and low-level managers, small-business owners and entrepreneurs starting new companies.

Yes, the appalling problems in the upper levels of the American economy must be fixed. At the same time, it is vital to deal with the difficulties, challenges and economic emergencies now facing people below the rank of "Master of the Universe." Specifically, emergency focus now should be given to Main Street and rural America, as well.

Where are the Congressional and White House leaders who can cut through the bailout noise and be stronger--and louder--advocates for the millions of Americans struggling in the heartland? These layoff victims need jobs now and can't find any, and thousands of small businesses who could hire them are unable to get crucial loans.

"Congress and the White House Team Up to Tackle Middle America's Deepening Crisis" -- that should (but won't) be tomorrow's big headline.


-- Si Dunn

A Digital March on Washington

It's time for a digital march on Washington--a million-blog, million-Tweet march--to get Congress and the White House to pay more attention to small business.

Small businesses are responsible for producing about 75 percent of all new jobs in this economically troubled land.

If small business owners could receive just a fraction of the staggering billions of dollars now being shoveled into the bailout shredders, we could create millions of jobs at a time when millions of jobs are needed.

Put economic crooks like Bernard Madoff under the jail. Fire the mega-wealthy executives who flew their companies deep into the ground. And start distributing money to everyone with a small business, no matter how small--with the restriction that it be used to expand operations and hire new employees.

A digital march on Washington. No one needs to organize this or set up a non-profit group or collect membership dues.

Just blog, Tweet, email...make any kind of digital noise you can toward our leaders in Washington. Do it now!

Tell Congress and the White House to quit staring, mouths agape, at AIG and other firms that have done horrendous damage to the national and world economies.

Urge them, implore them, order them (we elected them) to wake up and put some significant new muscle into small business.

It's time to start the recovery from the bottom up. The top, clearly, is just too screwed up.


-- Si Dunn

My most recent poetry book "Anchoring"

I've posted a PDF version of my most recent poetry book, "Anchoring," on my website. Click here to read it or save it. All of the poems previously have appeared in other publications, ranging from obscure literary magazines to Rolling Stone.

Comments and feedback welcome.

-- Si Dunn

Website: Sagecreek Productions

Blog: Dateline: Oblivion

Advice for New Screenwriters

Finished the first draft of a feature screenplay? Congratulations! #Screenplays appear simple on paper but require huge amounts of work just to complete.

Most people who start screenplays never finish them.

Now for the bad news: Your work has just begun.

As a script doctor, I see a lot of first-draft screenplays, and I can say this almost without exception: First drafts are never ready to pitch to producers and never ready for Hollywood "coverage." The professional script readers simply will eat the screenplay alive.

Trust me on this: Before you pitch it to a producer (and he or she farms it out to a reader for "coverage"--a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the producer should waste any time looking at the script), send your script first to a screenplay editor.

The same caution applies when sending new scripts to screenplay contests. Your magnum opus likely will be read by a small panel of contest readers--who often just happen to be professional script readers for producers, as well.

Have it edited, first.

Almost all first-draft screenplays I receive are replete with errors of grammar, spelling and screenplay formatting. You may think Hollywood will be too amazed by your story to notice or even care about these "minor" matters. Trust me on this, too: Many professional script readers will quit reading your story and start counting the mistakes after the first few misspelled words or misplaced commas or random apostrophes. Your screenplay will be a "pass" on page 1.

Writers cannot be their own editors. And family and friends are too busy and too kind to give your first draft the kind of feedback it really needs. They'll just flip through it and say: "It's great, dude! Send it off!"

Don't send it off. Not yet. Not until you've had it reviewed by at least one professional screenplay editor who will tell you what works and what doesn't work and who will show you the errors--both glaring and subtle--in your script.

You may be both chagrined and amazed at the number of blunders you have overlooked. But, once you fix them and maybe do a little rewriting, the second or third draft of your screenplay will be much closer to being ready to submit to producers and screenplay contests.

A little patience and a few revisions can go a long way toward success as a screenwriter.


-- Si Dunn

Scientist: "We Have Added the Blogosphere to Earth's Atmosphere"

Researchers at the East Mephisto Institute of Technology (EMIT) announced today that they have turned Earth's blogosphere into a new layer within Earth's atmosphere.

"It turns out there was just enough room within the thermosphere to slide the blogosphere on top of the ionosphere," said Dr. Timothy Zelony-Karandash, EMIT's director of atmospheric research.

"By using radio waves to continually transmit Internet data into the upper atmosphere, we have created a new use for old blogs. They are now helping us maintain a 'smart' -- and quite often 'not-so-smart' -- buffer between the thermosphere and the exosphere, which marks the upper limit of Earth's atmosphere," Dr. Zelony-Karandash announced.

"The new blogosphere won't provide any added deterrence against incoming meteorites, falling satellites, or North Korean or Iranian missiles," he emphasized. "But it will provide a handy new place to store the tons of digital pollution now being spewed out around our planet each day."

Eventually, solar radiation will break down the blogs. "But they will just fall back to Earth as a gentle rain of electrons," the atmospheric scientist promised. "According to our atmospheric models, the only effect we may ever notice is a slight brightening of auroras and rainbows."

--Si Dunn

It's the BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh Economy, Stupid

It's funny--yet not really funny at all--how the current economic crisis suddenly exploded into public view just a few short weeks before the end of the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Limbaugh Administration. And lawmakers were given something like one week to come up with massive amounts of bailout cash, or else the American and world economies would all swirl down the tube like a flushed toilet.

Conspiracy theorists might postulate that Republican insiders were frantically trying to keep the meltdown hidden until BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh made it out of office, so the economy then would implode just after President Barack Obama was inaugurated. And Democrats would get all of the blame for the collapse just as they tried to put forth their agenda of change and help for the downtrodden middle class and poor.

Anyway, it all blew up on the GOP's watch, and the elephant boys now are feeling the wrath from people all over America and the world while they frantically try to deflect the criticism toward President Obama--and make it "his" economy.


“Never underestimate the capacity of angry populism in times of economic stress,” Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, recently told the New York Times. “A big challenge for President Obama will be to maintain a rational and tactical public discussion in the midst of this severe downturn. The desire for culprits at times like this is strong.”

The blame needs to stay squarely on the true culprits: the "free market" Republicans who pushed financial regulation almost completely out of the economy and let crooks, pirates and others driven by greed take over and rip us off while steering corporations, funds and worker benefits straight into the ground.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney recently has said "Don't blame us for this mess." He was just trying--very unsuccessfully--to steer the spotlight away from the economic sins of the past eight years, during which he helped advise and preside.

It's still not Barack Obama's economy--not yet. We're still trying to cope with the financial horrors of the BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh economy. And we will continue trying to cope with them for many months to come, until the Obama Administration's frantic flurry of emergency measures finally starts turning things around.

So, yes, do blame the free-market, anti-regulation Republicans for this current mess. Keep the spotlights squarely focused on BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh--and make them keep paying the electric bills for the illumination, as well.

For a long while, it seemed that the messes in Iraq and Afghanistan would be their main--and dubious--legacy. But those are small potatoes now, compared with the huge pile of burnt hash browns the GOP and their free-market cronies have made out of the American and global economies.

Once a recovery starts to take hold, remember who refused to help and cooperate in our nation's time of peril: the House Republicans and their incessant "No!" votes against the Obama Administration's proposals; and most (but not all) of the Senate Republicans, who keep clinging to the failed policies that nearly sent us into the Great Depression of 2009.

Oh, and especially the real head of the Republican Party: Rush "I Hope Obama Fails" Limbaugh.

--Si Dunn

Tonkin Gulf Redux? DARK SIGNALS draft finished -- 68,000 words

I guess I should be bouncing up and down with literary joy. I have just completed a new, 68,000-word draft of my next book, DARK SIGNALS: A Navy Radio Operator in the Tonkin Gulf, 1964-1965. I can now send it to the publisher and take a couple of weeks off while I wait for feedback and the inevitable requests for changes and corrections.

It's funny (or maybe not so funny) how history repeats itself. While writing this book, I kept thinking: Well, this is old news. Not many people will even remember or care about what happened in the South China Sea and Tonkin Gulf in the mid-1960s, just when the Vietnam War was heating up.

Now, suddenly, there has been breaking news from those very waters. An unarmed American "ocean survey" ship, the USNS Impeccable, recently was surrounded and harrassed by several Chinese vessels in the South China Sea. And the Impeccable's crew had to open "fire" with fire hoses to try to keep the Chinese boats from colliding with them.

The Chinese charged that the U.S. ship was violating international laws with its "surveys."

Some disputed parts of the South China Sea and Tonkin Gulf have been repeatedly "surveyed" by U.S. naval ships since the late 1950s and early 1960s, initially sent there by Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. The goal, in those long-ago days, was to try to stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia.

In 1964, U.S. surveillance operations along the North Vietnamese coast helped lead to some confrontations and miscalculations that caused the Vietnam War to flare up and drag on for many years. That was how I ended up in the South China Sea and Tonkin Gulf for almost a year aboard a destroyer.

The Soviet Union also operated some "ocean survey" ships in those waters, including the spy trawler Gidrofon. It often tried to get in the way of aircraft carriers launching bombing raids on North Vietnam. Sometimes, my ship had to get in the Gidrofon's way and keep it out of a carrier's way.

Will there be a new Tonkin Gulf crisis that will make my military memoir suddenly timely again--after 45 years? It's a scary thought.

-- Si Dunn

Movie producer seeking co-producers for my screenplay

Canyon Pictures is seeking co-producers for my low-budget horror-thriller screenplay, Ravine.

Here's the tagline: Two personal wars. One haunted battlefield.

And the logline: Trapped in an isolated ravine, a combat veteran who fears violence must save himself and his family from a crazed gunman who is haunted by the ghosts of three men he killed in Iraq.

For more information, contact Rob Walker at Canyon Pictures, canyonpictures@yahoo.com.

Thanks!

Si Dunn
Sagecreek Productions LLC

Area Man's Plea: "Help! I'm Being Followed by The Onion!"

Kevin Klyzmymytzky, 78, a retired farmer and resident of this area for nearly 80 years, awoke this morning to the terrifying news that The Onion is following him on Twitter.

"I was just minding my own business, indulging in my old habit of checking soybean futures prices. Then I checked my email and saw an ominous warning that I am being 'followed on Twitter.' Moments later, I saw a blob-shaped shadow move across the shades that I keep drawn in my office. I was completely terrified."

Mr. Klyzmymytzky said that now, each time he steps outside his house, "I feel this hovering presence spying on me. I can't describe it, except that I sometimes see little flashes of white or yellow or purple while something--I never can see exactly what--quickly pulls out of sight around the corner.

"And when I'm driving my pickup truck, I have this eerie feeling that someone with bad onion-breath is breathing right on the back of my neck. But that's plumb silly, because my old truck is just a two-seater. And I don't never keep nothing in the other seat except my shotgun and two cases of beer."

Mr. Klyzmymytzky admits that he recently may have opened a Twitter account accidentally. "There's no other explanation. I thought I was applying for a federal bailout for retired soybean farmers, but I guess I clicked on the wrong link."

The longtime area resident reported that after he read the email warning and saw the shadow, he "called the police right away. But they just said I should buy a couple of pounds of liver and have a nice meal and a nice day.

"I also called Homeland Security. They just suggested that I should try to catch The Onion, then slice it up and invite them over for hamburgers."

Mr. Klyzmymytzky warned that he now carries his shotgun at the ready, even when he is inside his house.

"I tell every shadow I see: 'Go ahead, make my day!' Look, I'm just an old man who lives alone, and there ought to be a law against anything called Twitter that takes advantage of senior citizens. And it ought to be a felony for onions to follow people. None of this would be happening if Franklin Delano Roosevelt was still president, I assure you!"

-- Si Dunn

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"Totally outrageous celebrity news" experiment a complete failure!

I am pleased to report that my blog took a big hit in daily page views after I posted a headline via Twitter, hyping "Totally outrageous news about today's most vapid celebrities."

According to Google Analytics, posting that "celebrities" headline apparently was the digital equivalent of blasting Dateline: Oblivion with a nuclear torpedo. Page views sank sharply, rather than increasing as I had hypothesized.

So the effort to trick new readers into rushing to my blog was an utter failure.

Apparently, many fewer Twitter-ers are enthralled by celebrity news than I had thought and feared. Excellent.

However, I did gain a number of new followers, most of them wanting to sell me something and none of them commenting on anything I have written.

Seems to be a lot of that going on these days. We're all trying to sell something to each other on Twitter: soap, world views, sensibilities, our souls, ourselves.

Thanks to all who participated in this test, and even bigger thanks to all who did not. I'm glad almost nobody really wants to read celebrity "news" from some random blog in Texas. It gives me a bit more hope for the digital world.

May the farce be with you...and also with you.

--Si Dunn


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Totally outrageous news about today's most vapid celebrities?

Blame Howard Kurtz for "inspiring" me to come up with this headline. It's one of my responses to his recent Twitter question asking us to name our biggest gripe about today's media.

At one level, this little post of mine is just a cheap trick to see if people will overlook the headline's complete meaning and its question mark and actually click on the link to my blog, thus at least momentarily boosting its circulation and generating a few angry responses.

If you hype it, they will come!

At another level, it is just one old writer's futile rant against the incessant cult of celebrity worship--which no doubt has been going strong since the days of totally cool cave people, but now is made more visible and pervasive by electronic media and the Internet.

So, sorry, you'll learn nothing new or even old about celebrities here, vapid or otherwise. My answer to Howard Kurtz's question is that the media world seems to increasingly revolve around entertainment and sports stars--and to rely upon them for survival--while many, many worthy stories, causes and issues languish or are completely overshadowed or ignored.

Hey, but thanks for dropping by. While you're here, feel free to read some of my other missives that have been blotted out by the glare of the glitterati--and the fact that there are now millions of other blogs competing for the even barest bits of attention.

-- Si Dunn

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A Few New TV Series Proposals

I've recently updated my "TV Series Proposals" web page. It now lists three comedies, two dramas and a reality show.

Check out the brief summaries for my current series proposals here.

The proposals themselves are registered and posted as PDF files at WriteSafe.com. I can email them to producers who wish to read them.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

-- Si Dunn

http://www.sagecreekproductions.com/

The New Business Model for Newspaper Survival?

All over the U.S., newspapers are in deep trouble. Some have closed their doors; others are teetering toward collapse.

Their incomes from advertising and paid subscriptions are shrinking as more and more of us turn to online sources for news, sports, information, classified advertisements and updates on restaurants, movies, products and services.

Now there is urgent talk that newspapers may have to become mostly digital and try to sell their content online, to subscribers and to single-copy buyers (the digital equivalent of those who occasionally purchase newspapers from coin racks and news stands).

Selling digitized newspaper content already has failed several times. The New York Times and others previously have tried and abandoned it. Internet users are used to getting almost everything for free, except on music sites such as iTunes.

Some pundits already have floated this idea: Why not sell digitized newspaper content the same way music is sold on iTunes?

There's one big problem, however. Newspapers going digital with the iTunes model in mind will have to spend a lot of money on trying to make their reporters, feature writers and columnists into national and international media stars, so people will want to buy what they write.

Every journalist will have to become his or her own "brand"--You sell, you can keep working here.

The emphasis on "gotcha" journalism and scandal mongering then will just increase, as journalism "brands" battle each other for sales and marketplace dominance.

Nobody will want to cover local news--Boy Scout promotions, wedding announcements, obituaries, two-car accidents at Main and Elm--because almost nobody (except a few family members) will pay any money to read such reports, print them out and put them in scrapbooks.

Meanwhile, there will be hundreds, thousands of journalist "brands" rushing to cover President Obama, Kate Winslet and the Jonas Brothers.

Why, after all, write a story that will bring in two dollars when you can write one that might, potentially, bring in thousands for the newspaper and hundreds for your pocket?

If you sell, you can stay. If you don't sell, we'll replace you with a better "brand."

Doesn't sound like a very promising future for American journalism.

-- Si Dunn

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Confessions of a Script Doctor

Most first-time screenplay writers can't bear to hear the bad news: Their scripts were not only dead on arrival at a production company, they were dead long before arrival.

Screenplays look deceptively simple on paper. For example:

JOHN bites into a jelly donut and fires his .38 at a roach running across the ceiling. The bullet JUST MISSES the creepy, skittering critter.

John looks at his gun quizzically and then looks at MARSHA.

JOHN
I love you, Marsha. You know I do.

Marsha smiles demurely and takes the jelly donut from his hand. She throws it--HARD--at the roach, now running down a wall, and SPLATs it.

Roach and donut THUD to the floor.

MARSHA
Yes, I do. But show me again, John. Prove you love me.

And so forth, for 90 to 125 Academy Award-worthy pages.

In much of my practice as a script doctor, my "patients" arrive at my office already dead. They are just a bunch of zombie vowels, consonants and punctuations crammed into PDFs or printed out on three-hole paper.

Producers--but, more specifically, the all-powerful freelance script readers hired by producers to render judgment on "spec" (speculative) screenplays--would start seeing the dreaded "PASS!" word in their minds within the first two or three pages of these scripts.

So it is my job to try to bring the zombie typing back to life--or at least try to make it a little less dead--so my clients' screenplays have a better chance of being read and considered for purchase and production.

A couple of things I have observed about many first-time screenwriters:

1. They paid no attention in English class.

2. They paid less than no attention in English class.

When I must try to resurrect a dead screenplay, most of my work initially involves fixing grammar, spelling and punctuation problems, usually a dozen or more errors per page.

Many of Hollywood's script readers were conscientious English students, so a screenplay must be almost completely error-free. Otherwise, the readers will start noticing and mentally counting the blunders, rather than focusing on the story the writer is trying to convey.

After I clean up the grammar, spelling and punctuation problems, then and only then can I get to the real work of trying to help the characters, descriptions and plot become a story--a movie--that somebody might actually want to see.

Then and only then can I also start trying to (1) eliminate a billion dollars' worth of special effects that nobody can afford to produce and (2) find the heart and soul of the story--if it has a heart and soul beneath its myriad explosions, car chases and outbursts of gunfire.

Often, it's a tale about a discredited, burned-out FBI agent or CIA agent trying to save the world by driving fast, shooting assorted guns, blowing stuff up--and falling in love. New screenwriters, especially the young male ones, all seem to be infected with this same, lame story line.

Doctoring a "spec" script--one created merely out of hope by a writer without a paid assignment--often is an ugly process, but somebody has to do it. And that's why I'm paid the small bucks by a few producers and screenwriters willing to admit they need some help.

I know where to put the commas--and the smoldering love and the blazing gunfire--in the verbal sausage otherwise known as a screenplay.

-- Si Dunn

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