August 13th, 2010 / 1:50 pm
Author News

You Were Wrong

In the ever-evolving effort to figure out how to use internet video to sell books, Matthew Sharpe has hit on this idea: introduce themes from the book in six silly, strange, short little videos in which the author plays a video artist named Marc Sharf.

All six can be seen here.

Personally, I like them—I like the absurdist energy and the seemingly unnecessary play with identity. (Sharpe’s books are funny, but darkly funny. The character may be a way to break from that.)

So, what do you think? Is this a step in the right direction? Will these videos help sell books? (I was already on board, and my copy of You Were Wrong is on my nightstand.) Did he get you? Did he lose you?

(Weird that this post appears after a Jonathan Franzen post, eh? Franzen was a champion of Sharpe’s novel The Sleeping Father.

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12 Comments

  1. brian foley

      Sharpes’ Jamestown was one of the best descriptors of brutality and filthy colonial hygiene.

  2. Pemulis

      Gary Shteyngart proved the key is to cast James Franco in your book trailer; otherwise, it’s probably a waste.

  3. brian foley

      Sharpes’ Jamestown was one of the best descriptors of brutality and filthy colonial hygiene.

  4. Pemulis

      Gary Shteyngart proved the key is to cast James Franco in your book trailer; otherwise, it’s probably a waste.

  5. Reynard Seifert

      hell yeah i’m all over jamestown.

      i just shared the herzog impression on facebook. but i think mine is better. my impression. and i think this has inspired me to do a herzog reading of a drunken sonnet. but i’m not drunk tonight. that was last night   much too much   and i’ve got a sweet-ass block party to attend to tomorrow, i think wholphin has something to do with it or something, maybe, i think they are still like one good arm on a dying man maybe, a dying man with moderately sized pockets. sometime in the foreseeable future though, i’m gonna wax all german up in that piece like i’m caulking a bathtub full of balloons and shit

      httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRq1UgXSZqo&feature=related

  6. Steven Augustine

      To any Herzog fans: Herzog’s other muse (the muse he kept locked in the attic), Bruno S., died on Tuesday. Bruno, who was a successful painter and musician, was in the middle of working on a new painting when he died.

  7. Reynard Seifert

      hell yeah i’m all over jamestown.

      i just shared the herzog impression on facebook. but i think mine is better. my impression. and i think this has inspired me to do a herzog reading of a drunken sonnet. but i’m not drunk tonight. that was last night   much too much   and i’ve got a sweet-ass block party to attend to tomorrow, i think wholphin has something to do with it or something, maybe, i think they are still like one good arm on a dying man maybe, a dying man with moderately sized pockets. sometime in the foreseeable future though, i’m gonna wax all german up in that piece like i’m caulking a bathtub full of balloons and shit

      httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRq1UgXSZqo&feature=related

  8. Steven Augustine

      To any Herzog fans: Herzog’s other muse (the muse he kept locked in the attic), Bruno S., died on Tuesday. Bruno, who was a successful painter and musician, was in the middle of working on a new painting when he died.

  9. Marc Scharf

      This is actor and video artist Marc Scharf, a friend of the fiction author Matthew Sharpe. I’m not speaking for Sharpe here, but I’ll say on my own behalf that I’m thankful to Matthew Simmons for his kind remarks about my video, and grateful that he did not use the term ‘book trailer,’ which puts me in mind of a book taking a long, thin dump. I prefer the term ‘novel-related internet video performance.’

  10. Marc Scharf

      This is actor and video artist Marc Scharf, a friend of the fiction author Matthew Sharpe. I’m not speaking for Sharpe here, but I’ll say on my own behalf that I’m thankful to Matthew Simmons for his kind remarks about my video, and grateful that he did not use the term ‘book trailer,’ which puts me in mind of a book taking a long, thin dump. I prefer the term ‘novel-related internet video performance.’

  11. Matthew Simmons

      Yes, yes. Marc Scharf. Silly of me to suggest that Matthew Sharpe is pretending to be someone else. Forgive me.

  12. Matthew Simmons

      Yes, yes. Marc Scharf. Silly of me to suggest that Matthew Sharpe is pretending to be someone else. Forgive me.