Marlon Brando Interview 1965 part 1

Return of the Jedi Star Wars Nightline Discussion

CityLights interview with Pauline Kael part 1

Isn't YouTube terrific for becoming the repository of interviews like this?

Dubious Self-Publishing Advice, Yours for Only $29.95

A few years ago, I came across a web site authored by John T. Reed where he destroyed financial self-help guru Robert Kiyosaki's book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. From time to time, I revisit certain sites to see what, if anything new, the author has published on a subject.

So I visited Reed's web site today only to discover he's hawking a guide to self-publishing that you can buy for only $29.95.

Sadly, Reed is now engaging in selling some of the same kind of advice that he so justifiably criticized Robert Kiyosaki for.

Here is just some of the wisdom from one page of Reed's site promoting his book:

"* Self-publish—Do NOT. I repeat, do NOT ever let a “real” publisher publish your book.

* Stay out of the book stores—The main reason to avoid agents, publishers, distributors, and book stores is they each take a cut. Boy, do they take a cut! Matter of fact, if you are not careful, they will take all of the profits from your hard labor. To put it another way, you are cutting out all the many middlemen in an industry where the middlemen are especially evil and greedy.

* Your Web site—Your Web site is key.

You will get orders typically within hours of creating your Web site. Very simply, people type into a search engine the subject of your book (hopefully) and find your site. Then they visit, like what they see, and order."

Isn't it amazing that Dan Brown, James Patterson, J.K. Rowling, John Grisham (a lawyer) and Stephen King are all such dummies that they are willing to be robbed of millions of dollars by all the evil, greedy middlemen in publishing?

Reed devotes a page on his web site to the James Frey affair. Why? First, because it's likely to show up on internet searches about Frey and phoney memoirs and lead people to Reed's book. Second, it's supposed to lead people to distrust traditional publishers and drive them into Reed's trap.

Once There Were Giants: Pauline Kael

Here is a remarkable late 60s lecture-performance by Pauline Kael, who shows that she was as much an insightful media critic as a film critic.