Twitter Wars: The Net Strikes Back!

The Empire has grown in power and Luke Skywalker has abandoned his Jedi training to save his friends from the clutches of Darth Vadar. Now, the first battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vadar concludes...
[Vader has just cut off Luke's right hand, which has his lightsaber]

Darth Vader: There is no escape! Don't make me destroy you. Luke, you do not yet realize your importance. You've only begun to discover your power! Join me, and I will complete your training! With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict, and bring order to the galaxy.

Luke Skywalker: [angrily] I'll never join you!

Vader: If only you knew the power of the Twitter. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your Twitter.

Skywalker: He told me enough! He told me you killed it!

Vader: No, I am your Twitter.

Skywalker: [shocked] No. No! That's not true! That's impossible!

Vader: Search your feelings; you know it to be true!

Skywalker: NOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOO!!!

Vader: Luke, you can destroy the Twitter. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny! Join me, and together, we can rule the galaxy as father and son! Come with me. It is the only way.
[Luke lets go of the projection and falls into the shaft]

And thus it was in the early days of the Twitter-verse. I know, for I was there.

In the year 2006, Twitter was born; dark and menacing, lurking in the shadows but for a few months until the Internet Machine caught wind of it and thus, the Dark Side was born.

I joined in the early days, knowing little and doing even less. The ways of the Dark Side were quaint and easy, requiring only opposable thumbs whenever possible. For you see, Twitter was the bastard child of text messaging… but alas, I have never sent a text message. Ever!

My presence was low within the folds of the Dark Side and I learned little of the ways of Twitter, owing to my lack of texting perception. Only Time and the occasional stroll down the Digital Brick Road brought me those who hunger for my Tweets!

My followers are many, though I know them not. They number in the thousands, yet they are but names on a screen, minions of the Twitter who secretly speak out loud in crowded rooms of silence. How can one befriend a faceless name?
… and then there was Oz.

For Oz, the Dark Side was not those for whom their album collection contains a special entry of pink. It was instead, the Kindle and the ways of the screen.

Soon, the old Wizard retired, paving the way for the new Magician of Oz, who embraced the ways of the screen; of swiping fingers and digital bookmarks and endless power cords.

The Twitter still grew in power and influence across the land of Net, infecting all with its Darkness and the lust for the Kindle.

Before long, the Two had become One as Kindle and Twitter embraced; and the Magician of Oz, whose Shadow Demon and Family grew larger and more profitable, watched while the One intertwined among its own kind… Even Pickleless & Blu~

If this seems like an epic tale, told by a fool, full of pomp and fury, signifying absolutely nothing, then I’d be Shakespeare and you’d be reading this on parchment… but you’re not!

I never got Twitter because Twitter never got me. It requires a mindset that harkens upon our youth. It is they for whom Twitter works best. No one cares what I had for dinner and where I am at the moment.

Kindle too, is the way of the modern mind. Endless pages that never dog-ear and grow dimmer or brighter upon demand. And it is Twitter that allows me to sell Magician of Oz to like-minded folks who appreciate a story of Oz in a digital age while I bask in the self denial; that I have not returned to the Dark Side.

As you can tell, I’m not quite right in the head, but I know when to embrace a marketing effort that has proven to sell books, even if the books are nothing but photons and magnetic fields. As it stands now, all my books, be they The Royal Magician of Oz Trilogy or The Ozian Adventure of Pickleless & Blu, in digital format, outsell the product of trees, 10 to 1, thanks to the Dark Side of Twitter… and even FaceBook.

I still won’t ever send a text message… Ever!!!

James C. Wallace II
Royal Liaison of Oz