On Collabs
As promised, here’s the bonus post from last week’s blogging series:
Many people have wondered “Who is this Michael W. Dean guy, and what did he write in the book? I see occasional sidebars and sections by him, and a few too many pictures of his darned cats, but what is this “Punk rock cheerleading” he says he did?”
Well, Michael Dean is my good friend who came up with the idea for the book, and got us the book deal with O’Reilly. He’s this guy.
I’ve never met him in person, but we are good friends. He lives in Los Angeles, and we talk a lot on the phone, and did a year before we even started the book. I’ve been aware of his film and book work for about five years, but first contacted Michael to interview him for Verbicide magazine 29 months ago, and we really hit it off. He’s 44, lives outside Los Angeles, and has been involved in punk rock D.I.Y. art since 1984, when his band “Baby Opaque” put out their first seven-inch vinyl E.P. record in 1985.
Michael did some of the “punk rock cheerleading” in the book. “Punk rock cheerleading” is his term for taking something that’s correct from a technical standpoint, and adding bits here and there to make it “pop”, to make it “sing.”
I’ve been writing for a long time, for zines and magazines, and was blogging before there was a term “blogging.” But I’d never written a full book when we started work on YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts. Michael writes books for a living, and had seven published books under his belt before we started this one.
Below you’ll find the first post from this series, from Monday, on “Proof of Concept.” The parts in red are Michael’s additions to what I wrote. That’s his “punk rock cheerleading.” He did a good bit of this in the book. Not nearly this much in every part, and he doesn’t do it with my blog posts, except in last week’s five-post series. But I just wanted to show you a “peak behind the curtain”, of what an experienced, professional writer brought to the mix. And to demonstrate the power of the all-important collab, in any form of communication.
(Click for larger image, then click that image to expand to full size in your browser):
6 Responses to “On Collabs”
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Viral Video Wannabe...
…is written by Alan “fallofautumndistro” Lastufka, co-author of the book, “YouTube: An Insider’s Guide
to Climbing the Charts“. This site offers resources
for readers of my book and new tips and techniques expanding upon what is in my book. Visit the Purchase page above to order your own copy today!
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December 16th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Wow! I see he did quite a bit of editing indeed
And the book turned out great as a result, I’m 230 pages in and its great.
-Julian (ItTakesII)
December 16th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
[...] Article on Alan’s blog explaining the “punk rock cheerleading” I did on the YouTube book. [...]
December 17th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I thought he’d just be adding a bit in here and there. I’m surprised to see how much he did.
I know people might not be keen on him taking part in this because everybody knows you and not him. It’s the same as if a youtuber invites their non-youtube friends into a video - most people are a bit wary and unsure because this person is somebody new who they don’t know. It’s the same principal here. People aren’t sure of him because they don’t know him.
Giving them this much information about him though and showing an example of what he has contributed towards this makes us more sure of him, and i think that this blog post has therefore fulfilled it’s purpose.
December 17th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Andrew,
Thank you.
And I sure do know the “People aren’t sure of him because they don’t know him” thing. I’ve been on both sides of that equation. I’ve seen it a lot in my life, on the web, off the web, and before the web.
When people have their own private world (even on a public site like YouTube), it’s easy to distrust “newcommers” to “protect the flock”, or at least to “make sure eveyone in the flock knows everyone.” But in a “global village” kind of way, I try to give folks the benefit of a doubt. My view is more “innocent until proven guilty”, whereas much of the Internet (some of YouTube, and elsewhere, like on particular web boards where everyone is their own “king”), it seems more “guilty until proven innocent.” I mean, how do people even find your flock without trusting someone “new”?
I’ve had some of my most hilarious moments of being judged as an outsider with punk rock, which used to be a very closed world. An example is: a 20-year-old guy I know who sings in a punk band thought I “wasn’t punk” and even “wasn’t cool” because I don’t “dress the part”, until he found out I was playing and singing on punk rock vinyl when he was four years old.
Another example: I was one of the first people on MySpace, even back when it was only a file sharing site, then it became a social network. Then millions more started showing up, someone hacked my account and deleted it. I had to start over, and new people, who “arrived to the party” after me treated me as a newcommer. Like “who’s that guy? Let’s not trust him.” Nowadays the noise-to-signal ratio on that site is so high that I finally deleted my *own* account.
I find that attitudes of “We are a closed family, anyone new is suspect” keep me from wanting to be very active on a lot of social networking sites. But that’s fine, because I get more done without them. People want to read my books and see my films, but who in their right mind would want to read a tweet about what I had for lunch?
And you have to remember, any social network can disappear overnight. I’ve seen it happen, a lot. YouTube won’t likely go 404 this week, but it *could* eventually, ya know? I try to do most of my “networking” outside of networks owned by other people. And anyway, many of my YouTube subscribers are people I know in real life. The Internet rocks, but life rocks too.
A lot of what I contributed to the book was *life* stuff that can also work as YouTube stuff. Why write “just another tech book”? There’s too many of those. Alan and I strived, and succeeded, at making it something more.
If you wanna know what I’m all about, the one part of the book I wrote entirely by myself, Chapter 14, “Closing Arguments” gives a pretty damn good summation of most of my view of the world. And it doesn’t have a lot to do with YouTube. YouTube is an amazing resource, but I thinking bigger than that.
Respectfully,
MWD
December 17th, 2008 at 8:34 am
“I thinking bigger than that”?
“Icanhascheesburger?” lol…
Oops, last line should “but I’m thinking bigger than that.” Do’h, time for bed. Me sleepy!
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To clear up one other thing, re: “I know people might not be keen on him taking part….” As Alan writes above, he didn’t invite me to take part. I came up with the idea, but knew it shouldn’t be done without him.
I’d been talking to Alan regularly on the phone for over a year, we hit it off, chatted a lot, really dug each other. One day out of the blue I said, “You should write a YouTube book, Alan. I’ll help if you want, and I’ll help get a book deal.”
Not to take anything away from Alan, it’s our book, not my book. And I consider it more his book than mine. But I did want to explain the genesis of it.
Peace,
Michael Wareham Dean
December 29th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I Need this book guys! Damn Santa for not bringing it!!
I love how you guys are snowballing through various media, youtube/books/blogs/music, its really inspiring.
I hope my “Stalking” doesn’t freak you out when you see my name everywhere… I’m just trying to learn. lol
“Charlie Squitten Jr, Peanut McFluffernutter, and Fuzzbucket McFluffernutter.” - Awesome