Twitter and Facebook
Twitter and Facebook are gazillion dollar companies, who each possess a group of shareholders, a board of directors, and well-paid CEO’s who all are chauffeur driven and supplied with the best masseuses money can buy.

By a strange set of circumstances, the book interview he supplied led from http://joeypinkney.com/amazoncom/5-minutes-5-questions-with-paul-collins-author-of-mack-dunstans-inferno.php to http://www.oyetimes.com/lifestyle/35-books/17615-five-minutes-with-paul-collins-author-of-mack-dunstans-inferno-by-joey-pinkney to http://www.entertainmentnewsexpress.com/1329388805,iuniverse-publishing-iuniverse-publishing-gives-25-discount-on-all-books.html to a reprint to http://www.oyetimes.com/lifestyle/35-books/18509-iuniverse-books-that-have-caught-the-eye-of-the-media . Why is this interesting? Out of 42,000 books that iuniverse has published, the Joey Pinkney book interview led to Iuniverse to select my book Mack Dunstan’s Inferno and another for a major press release which led one major publisher to post this link on its walls. This whole experience has led to the power of social media and its future. The old school of arts funding does not work anymore.
Remember Joey Pinkney did not come from Canada Council or Toronto Arts Council but from Twitter. You may ask me: “Did you submit any unpublished manuscripts, past or present, to any of these funding agencies?”
My Pitch to Big Business
The old arts funding model in Canada must change because it only benefits those who are connected. The government should not fund the author, musician, or filmmaker. If the rules are rewritten, the government can actually save fund and stimulate an industry, or the economy itself. How? In the past, Oprah, or Simon, would pick the superstars. Thanks to the internet, the average person can do that themselves. In fact, the Internet is democratizing the publishing and arts industries.
I want to propose a change for arts funding. I want to give you an example. Imagine going to a bar, finding a great live band but this band won’t go anywhere. Face it; the music business creates entertainers, not musicians. My pitch is very simple. Every artist type should have a business number. Why? Let’s say, you want to invest money. You donor the money to that artist’s business number. They accumulate enough donors, they have a marketing campaign budget, and the donor has an automatic tax right off.
Change that band into an author, or an Olympic athlete, or even into a sports franchise, or how about an indie film at a local film festival. This initiative would encourage money to come into the country and stimulate the economy and promote the arts. If this was in place, why would a business person have money in an offshore account? Let’s bring the arts closer to business and stimulate the economy in the big picture. This idea could save the American economy or the European economy too. If done properly, it can actually keep the spirit of capitalism alive.