like THIS
“Likes”
“Likes” drive the world now. Every once in a while I will post on Facebook or on Twitter, It would help if you guys go like my book on Amazon.
I get weird responses. “Max, don’t they have to read the book! What are you doing! Soliciting wrong likes!?”
Oh feck off. Over 50,000 people read the first book. I know this because my editor called and congratulated me on the third print run and the book stayed available to book stores through AT LEAST two more print runs, though I never heard about those because by then my editor was gone [probably for telling writers how many prints runs they had] and Time Warner Books paperwork has never, to this day, reflected more than a first print run. [In other words, I never got paid. And you wonder why I am self publishing this time, right?]
David Trottier comes out with new editions of The Screenwriter’s Bible. And I go like them. Do I read every single one of them? No. I read David’s original books and I am just happy to see he’s still putting out new versions.
William Martell came out with a new edition of The Secrets of Action Screenwriting. Have I read it? No. I read the first one. I kept recommending it except it was out of print. So. I’m just really happy a new edition is available so I can tell my students to go get it.
And there is another aspect to “liking.” It’s not always about being some critic who read the book and line edited it and pontificated over it and went crazy evaluating it. Sometimes, you like a book because you know the author is good and you support the author. The end. I can’t read every book a student or workshopper or friend writes. I just can’t. I am spread too thin to read everything. But I am often there during the initial stages when they are first writing them, I know what talent and work and craft went in there. And I show up and like the book, whether I have time to read the final version or not, because —
[Pay attention to these words.]
I.
Support.
The.
Artist.