Quality writing going once ... going twice ... RYAN PEARSON finds poetry for sale.
This is the meager-selling book that eBay writing fame hath wrought. (AP Photo/HO/Courtesy Horseplay Publishing)
Mark O'Neill sold it on eBay! His auction writing skills, that is. (AP Photo/Monika Stohrer).
What a clause with which to start an advertisement: "You are bidding on a mistake."
It's straightforward. Deprecating, in a charming way, to both reader and writer. Intriguing enough to propel you through the next four sentences: "We all make mistakes. We date the wrong people for too long. We chew gum with our mouths open. We say inappropriate things in front of grandma."
Then on to the punchline: "And we buy leather pants."
So begins a recent online auction listing that allowed humorist and sometime actor Brian Sack to both rid himself of said DKNY thigh-chafers -- for $102.50 -- and to contribute to a niche genre of Internet self-publishing. No, not the confessional blog. Not the boards at http://www.falloutboyrock.com .
Let's call it eBay literature.
It is democratic to the core. Any schmuck with a product (or service, or even idea) can post his ruminations or comic ramblings in the midst of one of the Web's most-visited sites. Most listings -- for items like digital cameras or DVDs -- are simple and sometimes terribly written.
But how to draw attention to the nontraditional? Like used leather pants or --- in the case of a July 2002 auction archived at http://www.whattheheck.com -- the opportunity to sue on behalf of a person who found hair in his string cheese?
Words. Expertly strung together words. And they come in three forms:
1. Ad copy. Sacks' story of buying leather pants to impress a girl ran 431 words plus a few snappy answers in the Q&A section, where he plugged his blog http://www.banterist.com . Similarly clever-but-still-sales-focused pitches are offered on the one-product-a-day site http://www.woot.com .
2. Short-form one-liners. These are posted in the space-limited but all-important eBay feedback section. Sacks used the line, "This transaction was classy, unlike the Oscars with Chris Rock. A+." One from the notoriously random eBayer andy46477 reads, "I'll bid on you til there's nothing left but crumbs! Then I'll bid on the crumbs."
3. Serial narratives in which sellers update their auction daily or even hourly. A British man last year posted an invitation to his friend's wedding, claiming he didn't want to go because the bride-to-be was a "dog." He pulled the auction at the last minute, saying he used to date the woman, was still in love with her and planned to try to get her to marry him instead.
Some believe the much-reported tale was actually a viral ad campaign for the auction site itself. If so, is it any surprise eBay would use eBay lit?
Certainly, the genre isn't confined to folks seeking to sell stuff. Some are actually selling their words. Scottish freelance writer Mark O'Neill, after posting articles for eBay monitor http://www.auctionbytes.com , has written auction copy for other sellers several times over the past two years, collecting up to $10 per auction.
"I realized a lot of the auctions were very badly written: the grammar, the spelling, the actual description of the item," O'Neill, 30, told asap from Germany, where he now lives. "I looked for bad auctions on eBay and e-mailed the people who wrote them. Quite a few people were quite interested. There were some who were offended."
His first freelance ad was for a penis pump -- er, male organ enhancer. The seller, referred by a friend, was embarrassed to post it on the site.
"I wrote an auction description of a scared nervous man who wants a bigger organ so he can get more dates but doesn't have the guts to go to a sex shop so he goes to eBay instead wearing his dirty raincoat and does some heavy breathing over the keyboard," O'Neill said. More than 25,000 hits later, "It went for $120, twice what he paid for it. My $10 was nothing to him."
Put up some quality verbiage and with word-of-IM or word-of-e-mail from admirers, you might score a spot on the Top 10 list at http://pulse.ebay.com (alongside the $31,000-plus eight-foot-long Star Wars ship made from Legos).
Or, as in the case of Everett, Wash. divorcee Larry Star, spin your humor into a self-published book.
Star, 44, became an Internet sensation when he posed in his ex-wife's wedding dress last year. His listing told the tale of how after the split, she kept the engagement ring but left the dress. He hoped selling it would get him "enough money for maybe a couple of Mariners tickets and some beer."
The page drew nearly 18 million hits, reportedly more than any other in the history of eBay. He hired a publicist, launched his own site -- http://www.weddingdressguy.com -- and made appearances on all kinds of morning talk shows, from AM radio to "Today."
In the end, he didn't even sell the dress; too much attention led to jokesters bidding up the price to $99 million. But encouraging e-mails prompted him to try his hand at writing a real book.
"People were likening me to Patrick McManus, Erma Bombeck, Dave Barry. That's quite a compliment. I don't think I'm anywhere near that," he told asap. "I figured I'd use that as stepping stone to get a writing career off the ground."
He's now asking $17.95 for copies of his paperback book, "Bitter, Party of One... Your Table is Ready: Relationship advice from a guy who has no business giving it."
Turns out he may have no business in the book-selling world. Star says he's sold only about 300 copies since June. He now faces the reality of eBay literature.
"People will pat you on the back for something free, but when you want to sell something, it's a different story," he said.
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"high-ticket-items" once left feedback saying asap staff reporter Ryan Pearson was "a true ebayer."
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