Rather than your fine novel/short story collection/memoir/nonfiction creation, this b.s. got a book deal. According to GalleyCat, it's because Gawker posted a link to the chart and a literary agent picked it up and sold it. I can't really imagine how dressing "like a douchebag" (a chart no less) is going to be a book, or why...but whatever. What do I know about publishing? Clearly not enough, and yet somehow if this is what's hot in literature, I don't want to know more.
(Downright depressing.)
9 comments:
Ho-ly shit.
The only way this news could be any more depressing is if they decide to use a vampire as a narrator.
I'm keeping to the sunny-side on this one.
If it's morons like this individual who sell books and make publishers money...and then those publishers, in an act of deep philanthropy, publish literary fiction...well, doesn't that make douche-bag my daddy?
and this should surprise anyone? there is a huge market of douchebags who are dying to know if they dress like douchebags, and have about as much interest in reading a novel or fine short story collection as they are giving up their lifetime pass to eurotrash tanning.
crap in, crap out. it is kind of unbelievable, but not surprising. welcome to the 2000s.
There are a lot of these "gift books" published each year (The "Stuff White People Like" blogger apparently got a $300,000 book deal). I don't think it affects us fiction writers much at all; this is simply another aspect of the market. When I was a bookseller, I noticed that people bought this crap on impulse at the cash register, or for office gift gags/stocking stuffers. Either your readers will buy your book AND this, or will buy only your book.
I'm with anonymous here. This is the literary equivalent of a magic trick or practical joke -- the kind of stuff they sell next to the cash register at the toy store my kids go to. Fart in a jar, gum that tastes like poo (I have no idea how you'd be able to verify that claim, but it sells), the arrow through the head. I make them spend their own money on this stuff, which is probably why it costs, on average $2.95 per ridiculous thing.
Yeah, I agree with the above. No one ever comes into my store and buys just "The Penis Book" or "Porn for Women" (which is actually kind of hot).
Still, this one is not even half as clever as most of the other giftie bookies.
There was a writer, maybe George Saunders, who had a name for these non-books: KOOB. It's not a book, it's a koob!
But don't all the koobs eventually detract from the real books. I mean, don't people have budgets and limited resources for the hard covers with pages between them? And more worrisome, for every koob published, isn't it one less book? Or are you seriously proposing that these are separate markets, separate worlds...not even related remotely? Maybe, that makes me feel better, if so...or worse. I'm not sure.
Stop press. The geniuses at Random Douche publishing have apparently decided to use a vampire as a narrator. Fantastic.
To answer the question in your above comment, WR, no. All of these "koobs" sell better than your literary masterpiece ever would, and they make it possible for the publishing company to put out literature that they love but know won't sell as much. Those koobs make up for the sales your book would fail to drum up. That is, if you could stop getting rejected and find someone to take you on. *smirk*
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