Stefan Hayden

Long long ago Terry Goodkind wrote the first book of a great fast paced fantasy series called the Sword of Truth that everyone loved. And then he wrote another one and another one. 11 books later it finally ended and I hate the entire series. 4 books in I was so invested in the main plot I could not stop reading but Terry gets trapped in his own political views and his monologues get longer and longer. Those 11 books could have easily been 4 or 5 books and have been a solid series.

Then it was optioned for a TV mini series which a year or two later seems to be turned in to a “syndicated adventure series”. Will the show be any good? No and here is why. The reason the “syndicated adventure series” Hercules worked was because it did not take it self seriously. It was jokey and lighthearted and made you forget how low budget everything was. If anything is made clear by this 10 minute intro to the show it is how seriously it takes it self. But slow motion and fancy graphics will not save it from taking it self painfully seriously. Sadly the fact that Terry Goodkind took himslef too seriously is the same reason his books went so far down hill.

The only way this show can be any good is if it has great writing and acting but that tends to be where these productions tend to skip so they afford the graphics they want to have.

It premiers Nov 1st and 2nd and I hope my eyes bleed less then when I watch TinMan.

But that’s not actually what this post is about. This post is about building community. Because how better to reward to reward the people who got you on the bestseller list then with an email like this:

Subject: OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD Body: OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD Over the five days between the release of Paper Towns on October 16th, and the completion of tabulation for the weekly NYTimes Bestseller List on tuesday the 21st... John Green Sold Enough Books To Be Number FIVE On The New York Times Bestseller LIST!!!!!!!!! OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHHAHWOWOOOOOOOOWOWOOOO NERDFIGHTERSSSSSS!!!! NUMBER FREAKING FIVE!!! That's five spots better than we had to do! John just called to tell me and he is freaking ecstatic. "It can't have happened...it just seems so impossible," I think is the way he put it to me. A lot of great authors go their whole lives without ever making the list and you, my friends, did that for John Green. It was indeed the best birthday present he has ever received. That's not to say that you shouldn't go buy Paper Towns if you haven't already. The book really is fantastic, and obviously helping John get on the list was only one of the many reasons to buy it. I mean...it's a really good book, I've read it twice already :-) And I'm not the only one saying it...not only has it sold really well, it's getting fantastic reviews. And all of these things that really matter to authors like John are starting to happen. It's showing up in airport stores where there are only one or two YA books ever on the shelf. The displays are staying out longer, his publisher is pushing to get more copies into more stores. And those copies will be bought by people, who've heard about how fantastic Paper Towns is from you (or little notes stuffed into unsold copies...of course.) SO EXCITING! Thank you all so much for helping to give John the best birthday present ever. AHALKJHJL:KHGEUHSKDJH SO COOL!!! NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR JOHN GREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA WOOOHOOOO!

If that doesn’t energize your community then nothing will.

For Books I Am Reading I have been using Get Satisfaction for keeping in touch with my users. It’s worked out pretty well and kept me from having to build anything myself.

Now they have released a widget that puts a “feedback” tab on the left of every page and brings up a lightbox where they can send feedback right from the page. Sounds like a cool idea and I’m up for trying it for a little while at least.

Being a bit crazy when it comes to how I want Books I Am Reading to look I’m not sure I love having that black tab on the left. The site is pretty sparce and I’d like to keep it that way. Originally I thought I would just put the widget where ever I wanted it to go. I figured it would be a good addition to the 404 page. Sadly that is not an option but perhaps it will be one in the future.

If I get more engadment out of the community I’ll think about keeping it around. But if not then I will most likly take it off and keep the design as minimal and clean as possible.

Hopefully we are just a year or two off from css being this easy.

While I wasn’t looking my youtube subscriptions has surpassed 100. Why should you care? Because back when my bloglines reader first hit 100 feeds I knew that rss readers were going to be big. And yet there still is no good aggregation for online video.