Kenny Mayne has written a book

            An Incomplete and Inaccurate History of Sport:…and Other Random Thoughts from Childhood to Fatherhood by Kenny Mayne is set to come out on April 22, 2008.  Dancing with the Stars fanatics will remember his short-lived stint on the second season of the show (he was first to be eliminated).  But more people, though not a whole lot more, will know him from his work on the ESPN.  He approaches sports reporting with dry humor and sarcasm a plenty, as seen on this clip about Bills’ running back, Marshawn Lynch.  http://youtube.com/watch?v=pSO-kdWLFes
            The interesting thing about the book is way that is being promoted.  Kenny is using Youtube in a way that a lot of other writers could learn from.  It is true that we can’t all have Uncle Junior from the Sopranos read an excerpt from our manuscript (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6N_NlAmXS4) or ask our buddy Snoop Dogg to endorse it. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvZcJ0Za5Kw)  But Youtube is a free and accessible tool that writers could use Kenny-style. 
            In a series of vignettes, Kenny discusses the conception, writing and promotion of the book.  He uses his straight-faced delivery and subtle humor quite beautifully.  You can find many of these clips on Kenny’s own Youtube channel, kennymayne721 and on his website, kennymaynehaswrittenabook.com.  There are a number of clips of Kenny standing on a beach in Maine discussing the progress of the project.  At first he proclaims he will take on the last Harry Potter book in July, but later describes that he needs to 50 or so more chapters before finishing it.  The release date is pushed back to April of this year.  His young daughters say that they will help illustrate the book, but not until after they finish their sand castles. 
            There is a clip where Kenny harasses some Seattle tourists and offers them five dollars to use towards buying his yet to be released masterwork (he states here that he has started over and is on page 5).  This clip, at last check, had over 2,500 views.  I don’t think if I put up a clip of me harassing people about whether or not they were buying my book, that it would get half as many hits, but who knows?  The internet and Youtube especially is a random beast.  What catches fire and becomes insanely popular is a crapshoot (e.g. Chocolate Rain).  But I love Kenny’s willingness to do things a little differently.  Of course, book readings and signings are solid ways to get your book sold, displaying your chops in off-beat videos on the internet could work as well.  Writers could read excerpts, set some of it to music, write rap songs about their novels, film themselves getting thrown out of Borders for pushing their stapled manuscript on customers.  The possibilities are probably not endless, but numerous nonetheless.  A lot of us are spending a lot of time roaming around Youtube anyway, might as well put it to work.  

SHELFLIFEMAGAZINE ARCHIVES: issue #002