In case you’re not aware, “The Smith Family Chronicles” is a weekly episodic series I’m writing and producing via the website Xtranormal.com. Here are the episodes of the show I’ve done thus far. (You can also see them here on YouTube, and here on “The Huffington Post.”)
If you’ve seen “The Smith Family Chronicles,” and you like it, I’d like to encourage you to support it by joining/”liking” the show’s Facebook page.
Going into doing “Smith Family, I knew it would take six to eight episodes before people would really get what I’m doing with it. It’s a weird form; no one’s before seen it used in this fashion; the characters sound like voice-mail message robots; I’m using the show to deal with the most critical kinds of personal issues. So of course anyone would have to see a few episodes of SFC before they could sort of relax into it, and trust that it’s … its own thing. (If interested, you can read more about why I’m doing the series on my post, Oh the Secrets We Keep, the Lies We Tell.)
And I’m deeply gratified at how much people are getting “The Smith Family Chronicles.” The response at first was slow, as expected–and with each episode it’s picked up considerably. I was pleased when “Huffington Post” got behind the series. I was pleased when Xtranormal “liked” SFC on its Facebook page. I’m seriously pleased that (as of this writing) 162 people have “Liked” the SFC Facebook page. So it’s all going as well—and a little better, actually—as I hoped it would.
No one likes purposefully promoting their own work, and I’m no different. But the fact of the matter is that each weekly episode of SFC takes me about thirty-five hours to complete. And that cannot help but mean that in order for me to keep writing and producing the series, it needs an audience large enough to warrant that degree of investment.
By all of which I mean to say that if, by the time, or very soon thereafter, that I’ve published the eighth episode of “The Smith Family Chronicles,” I’ll have to cancel the show if its Facebook page doesn’t have at least five hundred members.
That’s it. Five hundred Facebook fans on or near episode eight, or I’ll need to move on to other work. It’s just like any TV show: if not enough people are watching, it’s adios time for that show.
So. If you like “The Smith Family Chronicles,” join/”like” the show’s Facebook page. Encourage others to do the same. Share the show with others; that’s the main thing. Share episodes from the show on your Facebook page (which of course you can do right off the show’s YouTube channel.) Email your friends and family about it. Blog about it. Tweet about it. Put it up on StubleUpon, or Reddit, or wherever else you can help get the word out about it. Do all that sort of thing. (Oh, also, if you would—and again, only if you like the show and want it to continue, obviously—do a starred review of the series here on its Facebook page. But beware: the stars you choose will stick—but apparently the Facebook “Review” app eats random accompanying word reviews. So, to be safe, do what you see others there have done: choose your stars, and then, beneath that, as a “comment,” write whatever you might have to say about the show. Thank you!)
If you do that sort of thing, and the audience for the show grows, and five hundred people join the show’s Facebook fan page by episode eight, I’ll continue this work, which I love. (Trust me: the SFC plot hasn’t even started.) If not, then zero worries, of course; then I’ll just move on to some of the other wonderful work I’ve got waiting in the wings.
Cool. Dig it. Love it. Good. Onward.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In