I like to surf on my couch. I admit it. I don’t curl up with a book or a magazine. I don’t sit at my PC stuck in the web for hours. When I want to relax and unwind I flip on my TV and start channel surfing.

The serendipitous quality of 300 broadcasts flashing before me in the click of up or down is, and will remain, for the forseeable future, my preferred method of effortless rapid information gathering.
Look there’s an idiot with his own television show…There’s another REALLY BAD movie by what-his-name…Why do they keep giving him money?…Wow, did you know that’s how they put the caramel in the middle of the candy bar?…Oh wait a minute here’s Stephen King…
Who’s this Tabitha King?…Must be his wife…She’s a writer too?…And the other one is Owen King…another writer…must be his son…They are in a big auditorium at the Library of Congress…this must be important…wait, there’s only like a hundred people in the audience…and most of them look like reporters…But wait there’s a high school kid asking them about…what is she asking them about?…what is this?…Can’t be too important they are all speaking in monotones…
click…Ah Phineas and Ferb…this is the new Disney cartoon show my son told me about…Hey this is really funny…I’d better set up to Tivo future episodes.

As an author I suppose I should be ashamed of surfing beyond the King and his court, but I’m not. I don’t know what kind of writing skills Tabitha and Owen have and I wonder whether their work would have been published were it not for their royalty. Maybe, if there had been some level of enegry generated on stage or some significant level of interest in the eyes of the meager audience, I might have hesitated to change the channel.

We authors must be prepared to compete with all the other possible entertainment and information gathering devices our consuming public encounters. And, from my perspective, a famous name, is no longer enough. Even character names like Skywalker and Potter are only as good as their last story.

In our multiple media world compelling work is discovered everyday by individuals who serendipitously encounter it and spread the word. As authors, we cannot force this discovery. Nor can we even identify the individuals who WILL make the difference. We can however continue to do what we know how to do, produce ever more compelling works.

And someday, the right someone will hesitate on one of your products and find they want to own it and tell all their friends about it. When that happens just remember, the real value is not in your name, it’s in your work.