A collage of Tao Lin's MySpace page, previously

It’s another coup for internet literary marketing genius Tao Lin: Less than a year after he gained worldwide attention for selling shares in his forthcoming Melville House novel Richard Yates (as this story from The Guardian and this report from The Telegraph detail, he sold six shares of the book for $2000 each, in return for 10% of his royalties), Lin now reports on his website, Tao Lin’s Tumblr Presence, and on his Twitter account, that he has sold his MySpace page on EBay for $8,100 to an investment banker.

MySpace members visiting the page can see that, indeed, it has changed radically and now claims to be owned by Kevin Chen, an investment banker who — while attending New York University Stern School of Business — once took a creative writing class with Lin. Chen says the page will now be used to promote “J.P. Morgan’s support for the arts.”

Tao Lin's MySpace page, currently

The news was a surprise to Lin’s longtime publisher — or, as Lin himself would no doubt say, his beloved publisher — and we here at Melville House know what the first reaction to this story is likely to be: the word “bullshit,” stated emphatically in a way that could mean several kinds of disbelief or anger or wondrous admiration. Indeed, that is the reaction playing out in the comments section of another post about the sale at Lin’s website.

An interview to clarify things seemed to be in order, so MHP co-publisher Dennis Johnson questioned Lin:

Dennis Johnson: Why did you do this?

Tao Lin: My internet presence seemed to have “expanded beyond my level of control” after I added Tumblr and Twitter and some other things, and I have always felt that MySpace was “dirty,” and “definitely ‘holding me back’” in terms of professionalism and being reviewed by Bookforum, the New York Times Book Review, etc., and so — much like one might take some random, useless “piece of crap” in their room and try to sell it on eBay, to simultaneously “feel cleaner” and “make money” — I put it on eBay.

Won’t you miss being on My Space?

Yes, but the yearning will probably just “fuel” my writing, so I look forward to that actually.

Did you get as much as you thought you would?

I anticipated a large local business, like a car dealership or famous burrito place, buying the account for maybe three times what it sold for ($8100) in order to promote themselves, in the same way websites buy pieces of toast with Jesus’ visage on them in order to promote themselves, or something, so I didn’t get as much as I thought I would, though I am happy Kevin Chen, an investor banker, bought the page to, as he says in his first blog post on my former MySpace account, “support the arts.”

What will you do with the money?

Go on a 7-day Alaskan cruise with my girlfriend or buy a 1″ by 1″ ad in the next New Yorker displaying my blog’s url in size 6 font.

Is this for real?

It seems, at this point, in my life on the internet, that no matter how I answer this question people will think the same thing–unless, possibly, if I answer it as I am answering it right now, then people might think something else.

Does this mean you don’t need that royalty check I just sent you?

Yes. I have already mailed it back to Melville House, in a flat-rate priority envelope.