My Google Appearance, Live and On YouTube

Here you go. In it I talk about the online world, copyright, eBooks and regular books, and, of course, about that whole BaconCat incident. It’s about an hour long. You can tell I’m caffeinated.

Also, here’s the YouTube page itself. Enjoy!

27 Comments on “My Google Appearance, Live and On YouTube”

  1. If you could turn off the sound and speed it up, it will look like an interpretive dance.

  2. Damn. You really CAN blather non-stop for an hour.

    Luckily, you can apparently make it interesting, too.

    Hopefully I can make it out to Powells when you come into the Portland area, but if not, at least I can now say I saw at least one of your stops along the tour.

  3. cool, john. the next best thing to being there.

    i hang my head in shame because you came to SF and i did drop by to say hello. damn time-sucking JOB!

  4. I really enjoyed it! I went to Dark Carnival, which was too small for you to do a reading or discussion. So, watching this was awesome.

  5. Ah, nice! I wasn’t able to make it up to either reading (I work at Stanford) so this was nice. It’s too bad too, my housemate and I had plans to picket against cruelty to bacon. We even had a sign.

  6. Ah, nice! I wasn’t able to make it up to either reading (I work at Stanford) so this was nice. It’s too bad too, my housemate and I had plans to picket against cruelty to bacon. We even had a sign.

  7. Ah, nice! I wasn’t able to make it up to either reading (I work at Stanford) so this was nice. It’s too bad too, my housemate and I had plans to picket against cruelty to bacon. We even had a sign.

  8. Commenting on your comments at Google:
    I enjoyed Ariel too. For about six months after reading it I cautiously checked chairs to make sure they were safe to sit in.

  9. It’s 2 a.m EDT. I had this great idea about slipping between my sheets and closing my eyes, when I did one more round robin check of my favorite sites.

    Damn you!

    Now I’m more awake after an hour of watching that. You’re so animated when you talk and as you said highly caffeinated, that I think it’s rubbed off.

    I will say though, this actually helped my quota of learning something every day. Thank you so much for posting it. It’s good to see you’re having fun on the tour.

  10. Great speech, John. I won’t admit how long I stared at your waistline until I figured out that your Secret Google Hiptop Device was your microphone.

  11. Great talk. :)

    I actually only found out about you (and Whatever) when one of the RSS feeds I subscribe to embedded the YouTube video. After watching it, I’m really curious how you promoted Old Man’s War and your other novels when they were on the internet – I mean, there’s a lot of fiction on the internet (though most of it’s probably crap); how do you draw people to yours?

    (Or maybe another reader who’s been here longer than I could fill me in?)

  12. I’m kind of curious about that as well. I mean, if I were to put up some of my own writing online, I can’t imagine anyone outside my immediate friends would actually read it. Did Agent to the Stars get any kind of marketing? It was put up before Whatever became popular, wasn’t it?

  13. I liked your detailed account of the bacon cat story. Very amusing.

    And actually as of 4/29/07 I couldn’t find OMW on internet achrive. Hmmm…

  14. I liked your detailed account of the bacon cat story. Very amusing.

    And actually as of 4/29/07 I couldn’t find OMW on internet achrive. Hmmm…

  15. I liked your detailed account of the bacon cat story. Very amusing.

    And actually as of 4/29/07 I couldn’t find OMW on internet achrive. Hmmm…

  16. Thanks for posting the video.

    Being able to see stuff like this is one of the reasons I love the Internet.

  17. I enjoyed this visit a lot (that’s me in the front row admitting to stalking and asking how you have such good conversations here).

  18. I really enjoyed this talk of yours and your thoughts on author’s blogging (building an audience) and published stuff for free and how it can help a writer. You were entertaining for the entire hour (which really didn’t feel like an hour). Thank you for sharing this.

  19. Thank you (and Google?) so much for posting this. You’re not coming anywhere near my city on this tour, so it was really neat to feel included. Yay for the internet!
    I loved the long explanation of the BaconCat story. You are indeed an entertainer.

  20. Did Agent to the Stars get any kind of marketing?

    When he originally wrote it and released it as a shareware novel it did in a way, which is how I ended up finding this site. He paid for an ad on Penny-Arcade and Tycho also pimped it in one of his news posts.
    I suspect today he would gain even more readers than he did then, if only because the Penny-Arcade readership is many times the size it was then, but it would also likely cost a great deal more, for the same reason.

  21. John, THANKS for posting the video. An enjoyable way to see you do your speaking thing for those of use wouldn’t go to the lengths of leaving our computers to go to a physical location. I hope it happens again.

    Jess – I had a similar problem finding anything in the archive from around December 2002. At first I thought conspiracy, but then I gave up on explanation and just went to a 2003 archive and looked backwards from there and I found it.
    Then I printed it out and bound it and opened a book store and sold it for lots of money. Almost broke even.

    In truth I really love John’s defiant anti-DRM stance. It will come back to bite him in the ass never.

  22. John, et.al.

    Good presentation. It was good to have you maniacally in the background whilst I work in my office. As posted by Kate-April 29, 2007 02:03 AM pointed out, you’re definitely as effective as coffee… [saved me the $3+ that I would’ve spent at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf]

    I can’t speak for the other 90+ members (men and women) of the Class of ’87, but I was more impressed by the folks you got to meet as an entertainment critic and the whole Oprah thing than being under pressure to produce Agent to the Stars in time for the reunion in ’97. I definitely like your Old Man’s War series much better, can’t wait to see what happens in the new book. Keep your spirits up, you’ll be home soon… It’s only 8 days away.

    By the way, are you going to the 20th Reunion in the Fall?

    It’s funny how I remember reading your stuff online BEFORE the Internet… Remember the old BBS system we had @ school! Of course the readership had to either log in one at a time or be on the Apple ][ as sysop. I still can’t get over the fact that you don’t have long hair anymore!

    –Dennis

  23. Scalzi! Calm down with the hand jive, dear! Love what you say, but those two fluttering birds attached to your wrists need that Xanax from the BrainPal spam, as it’s distracting.

    Hand gestures are most effective when used sparingly. Still (heart) you though!

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