I've never been paid $600.00/word

(Listed on Amazon today.)

HAROLD LLOYD - AUTOGRAPH SENTIMENT SIGNED

Price: $1,799.00 + $19.00 shipping

Only 1 left in stock.

Ships from and sold by HistoryForSale - Autographs & Manuscripts.

Estimated Delivery Date: March 29 - April 1 when you choose Expedited at checkout.

Authenticity Provided By Seller
Collectible Type original
Grade Rating Please see condition in item description
Entertainment Franchise Movies
Is Autographed Yes

1 collectible from $1,799.00

NOTE. I  vowed never to write about Harold again, though I'm keeping the title of my blog the same because it's too much bother to change it. But I happened on this, and thought it was interesting. That's about $140.00 per LETTER, if my shaky math is right.

Interesting, but depressing, because I am no longer paid anything at all.

And the message - I don't know who Gus Venaas was, probably the waiter with the napkin over his arm or something. So obviously Harold couldn't think of much to say.

Steal this book (no, I mean it!)

I will tell you what I'd like to see.

Go to the library to read The Glass Character. Don't pay. Borrow it from a friend. Kindle it because it's cheaper and can't be pulped (or at least I don't think so, though no doubt it can be terminated somehow). I prefer the idea of Kindle now because Kindle never seems to be outrageously discounted - it's worth something to them, I guess. Though I hold my nose to say this, you can buy the paper version very, very cheap on Amazon now - I can do nothing to change this. I would prefer you buy it at the sane price offered by Thistledown Press or even the retail stores, who can't afford to sell a new book for four dollars a pop. I'd say, don't support these capitalist pigs. On the other hand, you can get it way cheap, four for the price of one, and give three away to friends. Or resell them: they ARE yours, after all, aren't they? And that means more people will read it. It's all I have right now. 

It amazes me how often this is seen as pure ego. You mean she wants someone to READ this? Isn't the process of writing its own reward? If you cooked a great dinner and no one ate it and it sat there and rotted, ask yourself if preparing it was "enough". If a concert pianist, after 20 years of training, had to play in an empty hall that he had to pay to rent, well. . . you get the idea. I hope.  Not only that - the passion and excitement I felt around this era and Harold Lloyd himself led me to the false conclusion that my enthusiasm might catch fire somewhere. Wrong.

If nothing else, my link tells people how to get their hands on my backlist, and tells them there IS a backlist, that it didn't disappear altogether. If this story gets into people's hands, I don't care whether there is money attached to it. There isn't going to be, anyway. The only review I had, after waiting half a year, was an evisceration by a standup comic from Winnipeg, and I wasn't supposed to say anything: in fact, I was advised to thank him! The whole system is so bizarre and sick, no one else would put up with it, but there are always a few who are fat and happy and thriving and very quick to tell you what you are doing to bring this on yourself. 

So go ahead, order it from Amazon. I can't stop Amazon, and I can't stop you. It means you get the book and hardly have to pay anything. In an economic sense, it's a fantastic deal. You, the consumer, the potential reader, will benefit. So will Amazon, but what's it to them? Used marbles would garner them more profit. They told me the writer still makes the same royalties, though I don't see how that could happen. So why aren't I happy? Everybody seems to be really puzzled. Hey, it's on sale now! More people will buy it! Isn't that a GOOD thing? Who cares about prices anyway?

Meantime, my copy of The Movies, my cinematic primer from when I was a kid, just arrived at the door. I never thought I'd see it again, and in fact for many years I thought I had dreamed it, like a lot of those old TV shows buried in the grainy vaults of the brain.

Go on and have a good week. No, go on.

(News flash: today I noticed that Amazon has just knocked another 20 cents off the price of The Glass Character! Go buy it, no, I mean you really SHOULD buy it now, because at these bargain basement prices, they'll really go fast.)

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

         It took me years to write, will you take a look. . .

It's here . . . The Glass Character on Amazon and Indigo

This is the second time I've had to do this whole thing - alarmingly, it all disappeared the first time, which I pray is not an omen - so forgive me if I'm not feeling quite as festive as before. I've just found TGC on Amazon, looking a lot more sprightly with an actual picture of the cover, and though he won't be available for a couple of weeks, you can pre-order through the link here. Indigo will have them for sale online, but no word yet as to whether they will actually be in the stores. Link is also provided. I'll get him out there somehow!

.

The Glass Character [Paperback]

Margaret Gunning (Author)

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Book Description

Publication Date: March 30 2014

In the heady times of the 1920s Hollywood, a teenager?s crush on the legendary screen idol, comedian Harold Lloyd, changes her life forever.

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Product Description

About the Author

Margaret Gunning?s experience in print journalism includes hundreds of columns and book reviews in such publications as the

Pre-order The Glass Character from Amazon here!

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ie=UTF8&qid=1395511606&sr=8-1&keywords=the+glass+character+margaret+gunning

Indigo

The Glass Character

by Margaret Gunning

Thistledown Press | March 30, 2014 | Trade Paperback

In the heady times of the 1920s Hollywood, a teenager?s crush on the legendary screen idol, comedian Harold Lloyd, changes her life forever. The Glass Character is a story of obsessive love and ruthless ambition set in the heady days of the Jazz Age in the 1920s. It was a time when people went to the movies almost every day, living vicariously through their heroes: Valentino, Garbo, Fairbanks and Pickford. But comedians were the biggest draw, and broad slapstick the order of the day with one very significant exception. Standing beside Keaton and Chaplin in popularity and prowess was a slight, diffident man named Harold Lloyd ? the silent era?s most influential comedian.

For sixteen year-old Jane he was a living god and though Lloyd had as many female followers as Gilbert or Barrymore, Jane knew no one could adore him more than she did, and no one would be willing to sacrifice more to be part of his life. There is in her story a naïveté in the voice and a wide-eyed innocence in the events, but as guileless as Jane may seem, her unaffected vision reveals much about the politics of the major studios, the power plays of the directors and producers, and the prima donna and egotistical Hollywood stars who ruled the movies. Her story also reveals much about the human heart and our desire to love against all the impossible odds. ?Margaret Gunning writes with uncanny grace and unflinching clarity . . .Montreal Gazette

Format: Trade Paperback
Dimensions: 228 Pages, 5.91 × 8.66 × 0.79 in
Published: March 30, 2014
Publisher: Thistledown Press

Language: English

About the Author

Margaret Gunning?s experience in print journalism includes hundreds of columns and book reviews in such publications as the Globe & Mail, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times-Colonist and Montreal Gazette. Her poems have appeared in Prism International, Room of One's Own, Capilano Review and many others. Margaret?s first novel (Better than Life), described by the Edmonton Journal as ?fiction at its finest?, celebrates the joy and anguish of family in small-town Ontario. Her second novel (Mallory) explores issues of bullying and social ostracism. Gunning currently lives in Coquitlam, BC.

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Pre-order The Glass Character from Indigo here!

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-glass-character/9781927068885-item.html?ikwid=the%2520glass%2520character%2520margaret%2520gunning&ikwsec=Home

The kind of review you. . . somehow. . . just don't wanna get

I don't know how I end up on these things, but here it is - first of all, an Amazon.com review of one of Elizabeth Wurtzel's self-serving, self-involved pieces of tripe, then another, then another. . . and me wondering how a review could possibly be any worse, when I happen to know the author earns enough to put herself through law school in an extremely happy and floaty state.

It's a racket, this writing business. I think I'll go home now.

19 of 27 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars The WORST Book I've Ever Read...Seriously., February 13, 2005

By 

K. Bell "professional student" (Vancouver, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Secret of Life: Commonsense Advice for the Uncommon Woman (Paperback)

While I pretty much liked Prozac Nation, Bitch, and More, Now & Again, this book was completely horrible. Everything about it is cliched. The writing is bad and trite and the advice is really just irritating. The advice is far from radical as well. If I flushed my money down the toilet it would have been better spent. If you are an uncommon woman and you want some commonsense advice, I would say don't spend your money on this trash. I think the only reason I read the whole book was because I couldn't believe how horrible it was. I'm personally offended that so many books don't get published, but this one did. What a waste.

1.0 out of 5 stars simply awful, Dec 21 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Radical Sanity: Commonsense Advice for Uncommon Women (Paperback)

Self-serving platitude heaped on self-serving platitude then served up as "sass," from a spoiled, self-involved non-entity. Watch and enjoy as she, along with every other nineties excess, swirls into a well-deserved oblivion. Simply an awful --I hesitate to say "writer" --simply an awful phenomenon. Whoever mistook her for a role model deserves what they got. Another non-book from a talentless brat.

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3 of 7 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars So is this "Radical Sanity" repackaged?, August 11, 2007

By 

N. Charest (Rancho Cucamonga, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Secret of Life: Commonsense Advice for the Uncommon Woman (Paperback)

If so, then URP and shame on everyone for dragging out EW's least imaginative and most poorly written and confusing book and trying to pass it off as a new title. I know law school is expensive, but do what everyone else does and take out student loans. Wurtzel, you've snorted law school tuition 3 or four times over. Get a real job.

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http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Up the jungle

Thought I'd update my profile photo. Heheheheh.

No, seriously: I suddenly realize I've become an Amazonian. I order too many things. It started small: a book I couldn't get anywhere else; a book that was 1/4 the retail price in stores; a CD no one even knew about. Most of them were from Amazon. Most of my on-line purchases still are.

In spite of the fact that I live in Vancouver, one of Canada's (supposedly!) more sophisticated centres (note the spelling), I find I can't get anything here. Just nothing, squat. I couldn't even get a decent pair of bedroom slippers, so ended up ordering them from Planet Shoes and spending something like $45.

I get greedy, I get eager, I get curious. Can I still get a book long out of print? Yes, ma'am! Can I get a book I remember from 1973? What do you think? And it's cheap. In fact, Amazon's "new and used" feature sometimes lists book prices at one cent. Yes, you read that right. You can get a book for a penny, so that you only have to pay the shipping and handling. They're practically free.

I can't figure this out, except that there are dusty old piles of unsold books warehoused somewhere, and they just wanna get rid of them. These used books are handled by individual sellers, kinda like on eBay, and for the most part they've been reliable.

And nothing costs very much. . . does it?

Individually, no. But it sneaks up on you.

I had a dream last night that I received parcel after parcel after parcel ("brown paper packages tied up in string") shoved into my mail box, all the purchases I had made in my entire life. It was a jackpot of sorts. Was this a message from my psyche that everything I've done up to now is about to pay off: or, just a consolation prize to get a little squirt of endorphin going to get me through the day?

Speaking of said endorphins, I know this is addictive. I know it because of the temporary giddy rush I feel, then the drop of disappointment after I've had the item for a while. It never lives up to my expectations.

It's a great big bandaid on the hurt places. And there are hurt places.

The other day I realized I never go to the library any more. I became so irritated with loud teenage gossiping, frantic texting, cell phone rings, cell phone calls, staff talking at conversational volume, knuckle-cracking, snot-snuffling, leg-jiggling, rank body odor that leaves a trail through the stacks, etc. etc., that I just couldn't stand it any more.

That, and the fact that I have a far superior library right here at my fingertips. I can find anything in seconds, and never leave my office.

I now write my diary/journal on my computer, and have found it liberating. I had nearly given up on my old journal: it was such a trudge to make my hand move across the page. I used to write like the wind, but now the ink seems hard and chewy, and my hand moves at about 10% the speed of my thoughts.

So, I shop on-line, I research and book-browse on-line, I even journal on my computer now, as if I'm married to the thing. I remember years ago hearing that everyone would have to know everything about computers in the future, or they would be hopelessly lost and fall behind and become useless dinosaurs. No one could've predicted it would be so easy to use these buggers, so easy to go click-click on Amazon and buy yet another couple of books.

Or CDs, or DVDs, or flannel nightgowns, or t shirts, or bird supplies, or or or or