Click-up lines

An opportunistic genius has decided to devote up to 280 characters a day toward getting rich. Say hello to TwitterLit.

Twice a day, Debra Hamel posts the first line of a book as a tweet. No author or book title are included, but there is a link to the book owning the text. She also accepts reader input in deciding what to tweet. Debra has been at this, minus a few interruptions lone tweet, since April 30, 2007.

TwitterLit is also an Amazon affiliate, so the links that appear in the Twitter stream point to Amazon.com with her affiliate ID. Anyone intrigued enough by the first line to want to know to what book it is attributed will be inclined to click … generating a possible sale at any point in the duration of that user session. This is a smart and simple e-business use for Twitter.

How much mileage can a person get out of the first line of a book? Lots, whether you recognize the publication or not.

There are some famous (or obvious) first lines, of course, that should be easy to match with a literary work. Such as:

• “Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.”
• “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.”
• “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into a giant insect.”
• “It was three hundred forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago today that the citizens of Paris were awakened by the pealing of all the bells in the triple precincts of the City, the University, and the Town.”
• “I am Myra Breckinridge whom no man will ever possess.”
• “Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth.”
• “It was a dark and stormy night.”
• “This is George.”
• “Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife.”
• “I am an invisible man.”

Even those who haven’t read all of those books (I sure haven’t) can probably take an educated guess at a title and get a passing grade. But first lines are not always so blatant or familiar.

For most books—particularly the new releases someone might be inclined to buy—the first line alone is no substitute for a good review. In those situations, Hamel uses the mystery to her advantage. From a reader’s perspective, clicking to Amazon has less to do with interest in buying a book than answering a trivia question. Once that click is made, however, the affiliate link has done its job.

Try some more. How many of these first lines readily help identify these famous books, let alone what they are about?

• “Mother died today.”
• “The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way towards the lagoon.”
• “Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton.”
• “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
• “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”
• “124 was spiteful.”
• “You better not never tell nobody but God.”
• “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”
• “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”
• “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
• “A mouse was looking at Mario.”
• “All children, except one, grow up.”
• “I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up.”
• “It was love at first sight.”
• “This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.”

If you got anywhere near 25, you probably work for Cliffs Notes.

At any rate, congrats to the brain behind TwitterLit. It’s a smart schtick.