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.