Well, that didn’t work.
Why didn’t it work? Well, I’ve outlined a few reasons here already. I’ll repeat a few key ones:
- “Look, we’re on BitTorrent and use Creative Commons!” is not a valid promotional strategy. Pioneer One beat us to the punch with the TV-on-BitTorrent thing. Everyone else is doing Creative Commons. It’s not newsworthy anymore. Techdirt will not write about your radical new business model until you become wildly successful with it.
- The Kickstarter time limit does not help your fundraiser go viral. The desperate motive for backers to tell all their friends to pledge money RIGHT NOW seems to be overhyped. It’s an angle you can use in your own promotion efforts, but it doesn’t magically get everyone to tell their friends. Furthermore, sometimes an opportunity for fundraising arises after the time limit ends — for example, we’ll be screening YFIAS at the NYC Anarchist Film Festival (don’t worry, “anarchist” is just a scarier term for “left-libertarian”; no Molotovs will be thrown), but that’s not till the second week of April.
- The Internet is not the best place to promote an unknown thing that runs more than 10 minutes. Overwhelmingly, the most support came from people I’d spoken to or met away from keyboard. If you have little to no reputation, you need to start offline.
Let me expand on that last point, that the Internet is not the best place to promote an unknown thing which runs more than 10 minutes. Having thought more about that, I’ve realized that’s not necessarily true. It was just true for Your Face is a Saxophone. You know why?
Because I really, really, really botched the first three minutes of the pilot.
Case in point, Adapa said on the YFIAS Suprbay thread:
I also didn’t get past the opening credits. I meant to go back and watch the rest but…time is short and, like most people, there are lots of other things competing for my attention…so I never did get around to it.
So if the opening (of any future project) is weak you would be better off pulling it (with the hope of improving it and resubmitting later even at the risk of that not happening) rather than pushing ahead. You generally only get one shot at people’s attention.
Anecdotally, I heard this from a lot of other people. Statistically, here’s what YouTube Hot Spots had to say:
Low points on the graph mean that a lot of people stopped watching the video at that point, compared to videos of a similar length. In that first part of the graph, it’s really, really low.
The opening scene was the weakest in the entire episode. That made me feel terrible putting it out, but I just wanted to put it out already. Future episodes, however, will absolutely, positively, open on a high note.
Oh, yes, there will be future episodes.
Production on Your Face is a Saxophone will still continue this summer. Just because we couldn’t secure as much money as we’d hoped to by now doesn’t mean we’re not doing this. Maybe we won’t finish till late next year, and maybe we’ll have to put it together with duct tape and string, but dammit, world, your face will be a god damn saxophone, whether you can spare nine-thousand measly dollars or not.
Now, if you can spare some money, we’re still taking donations. Details are on YFIAS.com under the Support our Fundraiser section. We’re still offering sweet rewards based on how much you donate, like a DVD of the finished season, T-shirts, all that stuff.
I’ll also look into getting grants or something like that. I don’t know. I’ll figure out something.
It’s one in the morning and this post isn’t as coherent as I’d hoped it would be.
MG Siegler Destroys the English Language — Episode 5
Just when I thought that I’d never have to do one of these ever again.
It’s been over a year since our friend MG has committed an act of textual assault (or at least since I’ve noticed). I’d begun to think he’d been reformed, and that perhaps he’d turned over a few new leaves, as opposed to “leafs”. But now, in writing Fast Break: As Of Last Week, Many At Sprint Thought They Were Merging With T-Mobile, MG Siegler has begun to slip back into his old, dark ways — the man he once was coming back to haunt him, reclaiming his soul.
I’m talking, of course, about this atrocity of a first paragraph:
No, MG, this morning’s news doesn’t leave a lot of questions. You do, starting with your second sentence.
“T-Mobile customers want to know what it means for them?”
I’m not sure, MG, do T-Mobile customers want to know what it means for them? You’re the one writing the article, not me.
“AT&T customers want to know what it means for them?”
Or, are these rhetorical questions, MG? Are you expressing shock and disbelief at the fact that AT&T customers want to know what this merger means for them?
“Would-be iPhone buyers want to know what it means for them?”
Oh, no, I get it, MG; it’s not that at all. You just don’t know how to use a question mark.
Really, MG? A question mark? I can understand a semicolon or an em dash — they’re not usually taught in second grade or anything — but a question mark? You don’t know that it’s supposed to be used on questions that you, the writer, are asking, as opposed to simple sentences that are about questions? If you’re making a statement that “T-Mobile customers want to know what it means for them,” then shouldn’t you be using a period? Why do I have to explain this to you? Is it really that difficult to understand? Do you just like using question marks? If that’s the case, there are all sorts of ways to write a sentence which calls for a question mark at the end, so why waste the opportunity on something horribly, horribly wrong?
MG quickly recovers, using a colon properly in the final sentence of the paragraph, and continuing for the rest of the article with no readability-compromising errors. But the resurgence of his former tendencies concern and frighten me, and I recommend that we keep a close eye on him. MG is our friend, and I think I speak for all of us when I say that I hate seeing him like this.