Vanity Press Spoofed

[EUOL]

I don't know if anyone has linked this yet.  If not, here it is:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/1/prweb202277.htm

Thought it deserved its own thread for discussion purposes.

[stacer]

I read about this on child-lit--they've posted the contract and the book on the SFWA site, or some site related to them. Oh, here it is: http://critters.critique.org/sting/

[fuzzyoctopus]

"Yvonne poured herself a drink and melted into the chair across from Callie. She brushed a strand of moltenly hair from her eyes and proceeded to carve the ham. Callie watched intently. Juice streamed from the ham in rivulets like saliva drooling from the fierce jaws of a wild dingo poised over the dead carcass of its prey in the dingo-eat-dingo world."


*falls over laughing*

And then they all made up back cover quotes for it!!

http://www.embiid.com/books/books.asp?793760340&P=331&C=0

I'm reading the PDF and skipped straight to chapter 34.... it's killing me with funny.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Take that speculative fiction nay-sayers!

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Chapter 34's the one that's computer-generated?

[EUOL]

Yeah, I think it is.  Robin Hobb wrote one too, though she's the only big author on the list I recognized.

[Fellfrosch]

Oh my gracious, that's funny. Do you have the entire thing, Fuzzy? Any chance I could borrow it when you're done?

edit: oh, nevermind. I found the pdf link.

edit: but it doesn't work.

[Entsuropi]

Raymond E Feist posted. Big fantasy name. Been going downhill lately but his book where Kingdom and japanese empire troops co-operated during the war to kill some nasty critters was good.

Yes, I really have a good memory for names and such.

[fuzzyoctopus]

Sorry Fell, should have posted that - to get to a .pdf that works you have to go to the sfwa site.

http://www.sfwa.org/members/aburt/

[EUOL]

Feist did a cover quote, but I didn't see his name on the chapter list I saw.  There were a number of blank ones, though.

[Spriggan]

haha, those quotes made me laugh


best so far

A love match between e. e. cummings and James Joyce might yield prose as profound as that found in Atlanta Nights"

--Megan Lindholm

Though I may be hated on this board for saying such a thing, but I do think Vanity Presses serve a usefull purpose in the publishing industry.  There have been good books published by them.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

I stand agahst as I agree whole heartedly with Spriggan

[EUOL]

I don't think anyone here, or in the industry, has a problem with Vanity Presses.  They serve a very important, and useful, function in publishing.  There are a lot of people who find success, or at least fulfillment, thorough a vanity press.   As long as they understand what they are getting into, and that the press is printing the book, not 'publishing' it, then everything is fine.

The problem with PublishAmerica is that they try to pretend to be a publisher--even going so far as to contract rights from authors--but are essentially just a big vanity press in disguise.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

I guess we just thought you guys were bashing Vanity in general...

[Entsuropi]

What's the difference? Does a vanity press simply print off a bunch of books for you to deal with yourself?