Huzzah. As I noted yesterday, it's remarkable how few book sales are need to affect one's position on Amazon. On the second day of my promotion for A Christmas Carol 2: The Return of Scrooge, it keeps going up the chart, and is now #2 in Amazon's Best-Seller List for Humor/Parody in ebooks.
Yes, yes, it's not quite a major Best-Seller List (nor has it reached the level of even a minor Best-Seller List, but more a case of a "Well, that's nice, for what it's worth" Best-Seller List. But it beats not being on the list... So, if you've bought a copy this year, either for yourself, or as a gift, or just as a way of dropping 99-cents into the Elisberg Industries Appreciation Till, thanks very much. In the meantime, one can get it here. If it happens to go higher by one spot, I'll be sure to let you know.
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This is a pretty amusing video for a very pointed and serious subject. It's part of an original series from the Huffington Post called "“Celebs Have Issues,” where famous people use comedy to raise awareness about important issues.
Here we have "A Safety Guide for Brown People" done by Aasif Mandvi -- unfortunately based on real life tales. On this week's "Not My Job" segment of the NPR pop culture quiz show Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!, host Peter Sagal's guest is a bit of semi-nepotism, the husband of a previous guest, who had been Tricia Yearwood. That means it's country megastar Garth Brooks. The interview stars off low-key, and then slowly become pretty giddy and fun.
'Tis the season. Yes, it's that time o' year. Fa la la, I once again have a one-week holiday promotion sale of my book, A Christmas Carol 2: The Return of Scrooge. Through Saturday, the Kindle ebook edition is now just a whopping 99-cents.
I'll note, as well, that last year it hit #1 on Kindle's Best Seller List for Humor/Parody. Not quite the NY Times Best Seller List, but I'll take it. As you might imagine, this is the time of year when the book sells. Hence, promoting it now. Bizarrely, I do actually get a few sales during the year, which always stuns me, but who am I to quibble. Maybe it's people who like to do their holiday shopping early. Or those who live their life with the holiday spirit in their heart the whole year round. Or maybe they're from Australia and live their life upside-down. Or who knows why?? God bless them, everyone. The story continues Dickens' tale as the ghost of Scrooge returns to visit his former clerk Bob Cratchit, who has inherited the counting house from his employer, and mixed into the adventure are a couple dozen characters from other Dickens novels, like Oliver Twist (who doesn't feel he's being paid enough in his job and is chosen by his fellow-clerks to ask for a raise), Mr. Pickwick, Miss Havisham, Little Nell, Fagin, Mr. McCawber, and many others. By the way, the book is also available in paperback, for a very reasonable $6.95. I actually prefer the paperback -- not for the price (honest) -- but because the book is full of humorous footnotes that tell a secondary tale if you're paying attention, and I think footnotes work better in a paperback than ebook. (They work fine in the ebook edition, using hyperlinks, I just personally prefer them there right on the page, rather than as endnotes and jumping back-and-forth. Chacun a son gout, as the British say..) I'll mention one other thing. I don't pass the hat for this website, so if anyone feels that buying a 99-cent ebook is a fine way to leave a tip, I won't quibble. Even if you've already bought the book for yourself, you can give it as a gift to a friend or needy urchin. Or just have a second copy because it's 99-cents and a nice thing to do! You can even just delete the downloaded file if you don't want it hanging around. Hey, it's 99-cents, that's the point. I say all this because you have no idea how just a handful of sales can make a Kindle ebook skyrocket on one of these Amazon sub-genre best-seller lists (like humor/parody) -- and that raises its visibility, which in turn increases sales. So, a simple 99-cent purchase has far more impact than most people think. Just by way of perspective -- when I got up this morning and got around to checking, the book was ranked #192 for ebook Humor/Parody. Two hours later, after the promotion started, it's now #42..!! (UPDATE: four hours later, it's up to #30.) Okay, enough of that. Get the book or not, your choice. Have a good holiday season regardless. End of tidbits for now. I'm guessing this may not be the first time I mention this... If you do choose to get a copy, you get find it here. Yes, this is about sports. And "worse," about golf. But bear with me a moment, because this is about more than that, and about a documentary, so hear me out first before you rush away...
A couple of months back, when the golf legend Arnold Palmer passed away, I posted several richly-moving videos of a few particular speeches given at the memorial service for him, and also wrote about two absolutely tremendous documentaries on his life produced by NBC for the Golf Channel. One was called Arnie and Me, about the profound impact he had on peoples' lives, and the other, simply called Arnie -- a three-part film narrated by Tom Selleck on the fullness of his life, including a great deal after his playing career ended. I was happily able to find the full film of Arnie and have it here. I know a lot of people avoid anything about sports -- and that number leaps up immeasurably when it comes to golf, the mere word of which drives some people to unconsciousness. But I hope people will give this documentary a chance...even at its length, two hours and 40 minutes. (Yes, you read that right. But consider this -- if there wasn't SO much rich and wonderful and meaningful and fascinating in Arnold Palmer's life, do you think they could have gotten a 2 hour and 40 minute film about him made?!) It is gorgeously done, moving and quite wonderful. There are few athletes in world sports history who transcend their sport and reach international legend status -- Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Joe Louis, and a few others -- but Arnold Palmer was one of them. And this film helps explains why. It's great -- even the golf parts for those who are bored silly by golf. But if you simply can't abide golf, no matter how great this documentary is in how it handles such a thing, just to the 1:46 mark and pick up the film there. As I said, this was originally aired in three parts, and that's around where Part Three begins, called "Legacy." It's about the continuing impact of Arnold Palmer's life on society, including his characters and building hospitals for mothers and children. It is so good and so touching and even this one-third of the film will give you a sense of his legend, and why he was utterly beloved by his fellow-competitors, and so many countless others whose life he touched, directly or tangentially, and why his legend lasted and still does today. Hopefully you'll give the whole thing a chance -- watch the first 10 minutes or so and see if you want to stick around. And no need to watch it all in one sitting, after all it wasn't intended that way but was broadcast in those three parts, each about 50 minutes long. Or watch half an hour at a time. Or...just put aside an evening and jump to the 1:46 mark. I can't find a way to embed the film, but you can get to it here. From the archives, this week's contestant is Dan Larkin, from Windsor, California. As I wrote previously, "The hidden song should be very easy to guess, I think, and probably pretty early on. There were three composers I thought it might be in the style of. I had one in mind, but changed -- and it was the contestant's guess, as well, but it wasn't that. It also wasn't one of the other two. So, I was wrong. But I should have gotten it. And I think others have a good chance of getting it."
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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