L1: The Art of Advertising

I learned a very important lesson today. They say you learn something everyday, but most of that shit is pointless. This was very important.

The Book of The Man
Lesson #1: The Art of Advertising

- If advertising for a book store, you can cram as much text as possible into any given space. After all, your customers clearly like to read.

- People like pictures, even small, grainy, black & white photos crammed in amongst your endless text.

- If providing a map, be sure to provide extensive text directions from every conceivable location. Not everyone is as familiar with "road signs" and "pictograms" as your fancy pants marketing staff*.

*"Marketing staff" being anyone on your staff who's heard of Photoshop but isn't The Man.

- Reduce your address and contact information to the smallest distinguishable text size. If someone cares that much, they can Google your damn business.

- The truth is boring; people don't want to be bored.

- When lying (as you should always be doing), it is best to be as hyperbolic and bold-faced as possible. People can't feel like your pulling the wool over their eyes if you make your lie completely obvious.

The Man gets "hoodwinked", but won't stand for it

This is how it all went down...

To begin with, we have an upcoming event with one sappy, smarmy bastard I won't name here. To illustrate: Mr. Narcissist's publisher came up a clever marketing plan that includes branded packages of 10 tissues ("because 5 won't be enough"). So, there's that.

Last week, the publisher convinced The Man to preorder and advertise the Golden Boy's new book, which is being released in December.

Well, in the process of some basic business, I discovered a little line on the "new" books cover: "Includes two complete novels". Some not so difficult investigative work unveiled that these two novels have both already been published.

The big rub? Both titles were published by His Greatness' previous publisher - a small paperback imprint. So the new title is just his new publisher grubbing for money off books we already have in stock.

Lesson learned: you don't mess with The Man.

Books We'll Never Carry: The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

We at the store have nothing against sex. Not even The Man. An old incarnation of the shop even had it's own Erotica section. I don't know when this was, but I'm betting it had beads instead of a door. Anyhow...

This is the new book by Victor Pelevin, he of the postmodern Russian allegory. It's like original Russian allegory, but has less to do with Lenin and more to do with memories of Lenin. (OK, it's actually good writing, and I refuse to lie about that in this world of so much not-good writing.)

The book is kind of about sex - prostitutes figure heavily - but I repeat that it isn't the obvious sexuality of the cover that will keep us from stocking it. I won't rule out that the woman's tail will play a role. It's certainly two different things to imply sex with a woman than to imply sex with a fox-woman (technically, she's a werefox, as Pelevin explains).

Really, though, we just don't carry orange books. I'm sitting here, looking around the store, and I only see two orange books anywhere. TWO. That's like .01% of our store. I don't purport to know what The Man has against orange, but the disdain is clear. I, for one, won't stand for it. Which is why I sit down to write the blog.

[Photo borrowed from BookCoversAnonymous. We link to them; over there->]

The Quick and Dirty Book Review, 9/8

1. The Art Thief, Noah Charney: From Publisher's Weekly, via amazon.com...

"flat characters, overly technical exposition and a plot implausible even in the wake of The Da Vinci Code"

The ever ebullient folks at PW finally find something to sink their teeth into, and realize they haven't had a good meal in a long time.

2. The Gargoyle, Andrew Davidson: 'Andrew Davidson Talks About Becoming a Writer' on amazon.com...

"This ambition lasted until I was ten years old, when I spent a year gazing into the abyss, hoping that the abyss would not gaze back at me."

And then, last week, you realized you were a pompous asshole who can only substitute vagueness for emotional depth and authorial insight.

3. Balls, Nanci Kincaid: from the book jacket...

"They see football as it really is--sexy, dirty, sweaty, painful, empowering, corrupt."

Yes, they used "sweaty" to talk about Balls. They also wrote "thuack!" in big quotes on the back cover. Somewhere, someone at Random House is wondering if their joke has gone too far, and Ms. Kincaid is continuing to lose touch with a younger, perhaps cruder, generation.

The Opening Credits

I always like to give credit where credit is due, so I give due notice for our humble little site's name.

First, a mention of Walter Moers' book The City of Dreaming Books, whose influence should be obvious. I heartily borrowed Herr Moers' phrasing, but only as an homage to his wonderfully satirical look at the publishing industry, in the form of an imaginative children's tale - naturally.

And, second, to an unnamed binominal publishing company who manages to ruin pretty much every box of books they've ever sent us. Capable of destruction despite scads of bubble wrap and the occasional effort of double boxing, the wonderful people at this high class publishing establishment hit chords of rancor with The Boss many, many times. Then I get the task of photographing damaged books so we can email the hommes cretinous who work for the besotted organization and explain to them that they're ruining they're own products. In any other business, that would be hara-cari, but they just keep on, keepin' on.

So that's the long and short of it. The work week begins soon, which means the story pile can only grow...