THE STORY OF THE FIRST BOOK ON MYSPACE 
Once upon a time (a few years ago) there was this little networking site called MySpace that kinda sucked and crashed all of the time and seemed like it was run out of some guys garage and the guy who ran it was kind of a dick. It wasnt anything new. It was not even much fun. But believe it or not MySpace used to be smaller and more intimate than Friendster, more innocent than Tribe.net, and wayyyyyy easier for everyone to use than sites like Blogspot or Facebook or whatever you USED to use when you wanted to rant and rave at the world or promote your band before you finally gave in and made your own MySpace page. Cmon youre reading this for a reason.
Oh shit, now Im the old guy at the club! 
Back in 2004, when Why I Committed Suicide first came out, I was posting my book anywhere I thought people might just stop and take a look. I was begging for readers. I was begging for reviews, I was begging bookstores to let me ship them free copies to stock on the shelf. Back then I was always frustrated because I had spent night and day and years pouring my heart and soul into a piece of presentable literature (WICS) and then when it got published I couldnt even GIVE away free copies to people to read. Then someone pointed me in this direction and I thought why not? And thats the amazingly boring story of how I got to be THE FIRST BOOK ON MYSPACE. 
Like most innovations, me being the FIRST is just the pure dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time. Lemme tell ya, the sheer thrill of catching the crest of a cultural phenomenon before it happens is amazing. It makes you feel smart. Some days I feel like I bought stock in Microsoft back in the 1970s. Or built the first airplane. Bad analogies but something along those lines anyway. The age-old alchemic magical formula does work: Right Time + Reaching the Right Demographic + A lot of fucking Hard Work = Success.
See, in the old days you couldnt pick your top 8 friends. You couldnt even change fonts on your page. The person who was on MySpace the longest was listed in everyones top 8. Because of that, I was listed in a lot of peoples top 8. Friends found me listed on their friends top 8 and found out about my book and on and on. Because I found MySpace, Ive achieved more book-related goals than I ever knew I had. I created a published book that sells because people like it. I got e-mail from Anne Rice saying I am a real author, and an attaboy from Noam Chomsky. Even the drummer from Janess Addiction wrote to say hey. People who are MY heroes are writing to ME saying how much they respect what Im doing. 
My book is just my story. It talks openly and bluntly about being in love and having sex and doing drugs and going to jail and living life, which also means Why I Committed Suicide isnt likely to win any awards or be adapted into a sub-plot on Gilmore Grrls. (I know you got the copy I sent Ms. Bledel!) My original goal was to reach out to 2,000 people but I just flew past the 8000+ friend mark and now I see theres been over 20,000 hits on www.whyicommittedsuicide.com and I can feel the fruits of my labor. My phone rings about the book every few days and positive interest in the sequel that Im working on feels really great. Now people write to me instead of the other way around and its amazing to know how youve touched people so deeply. People know my joy and pain and want to share theirs. Reading their letters inspires me to keep writing when I get in that deep, dark funk. 
For every 1000 friends I make, I like writing a reflection blog about what its taken to get here. If I can reach a thousand people, that means Ive talked or commented or listened to at least 800 folks from around the world. I love seeing MySpace on the news, involved in another new controversy. I love seeing the new films section and I still enjoy listening to new (and old) bands. But more than anything I love the sudden rash of new and old authors posting their books on MySpace. Authors from sites all over are making themselves open to their potential fans and exposing themselves to the world. I especially love that EVERY publishing house that rejected my novel is now using MY marketing strategy as their big new way to reach the teen audience. The sincerest form of flattery is imitation. Still a nice fat check that says, Write for a living, would be damn fine.
I am the first book to ever be on MySpace. Suddenly I am validated, trendy and cool... oh shit!