Sunday, September 2, 2012

Review: How to Sell a Gazillion eBooks In No Time by Russell Blake

Description: How To Sell A Gazillion eBooks In No Time (Even if Drunk, High or Incarcerated) is a parody of all things related to writing, self-publishing and self-promotion. Featuring 59 Writer’s Tips running the gamut from selecting a blockbuster title to creating compelling narrative and dialog, Russell’s relentlessly evil humor mocks everything sacred to the writing profession. Described as “…the literary equivalent of Ebola” and “vicious, demented, reprehensible brain poison,” Blake’s book is sweeping the publishing industry and garnering rave reviews. A must buy for authors, friends of authors, and readers everywhere.

”How to Sell a Gazillion eBooks In a Year is by far the most important book ever written on any topic, although I exclude the Bible since the Bible wasn’t exactly written in the way we mean the word “written.” But other than that, Gazillion does it all. For everyone. A can’t miss, sure fire Gazillion hit-a-thon from the master of them all.”

My Thoughts: I laughed so hard I threw myself into a coughing fit several times. Admittedly, this is not difficult in my current state of health, but Blake has still written a hysterically funny satire on the glut of self-publishing how-tos blooding the internet over the past couple of years. I caught John Locke (even funnier now that he's revealed himself to be a fraud who buys reviews), JA Konrath (not a fraud, but sometimes a bit of an acquired taste), and a few others that I'm not going to name because they're obsessive self-Googlers and I honestly do not need to deal with their shit right now. (The chapter mocking existentialists and anyone else who stands behind half-understood jargon as a substitute for argument had me wheezing so hard that I now have a brand-new set of abs, however. Do you know how long it's been since I had abs? Since never.)

What I enjoyed most about the book, though, is that it's satire in the truest sense: Blake is making fun of certain behaviors because he knows these people are capable of better. He's snarky as hell, but never trips over the line into the mean or personal, and there is a lot of genuinely good writing advice buried under the pigtail-pulling.

And, I have to stress this again, he mocks existentialists. Everyone should mock existentialists, all the time.

(I apologize for how little I've been around lately, either in this space or on Twitter. I haven't descended into another terrifying depressive episode; my reasons for being scarce around these parts are much more mundane. I'm doing line edits on Leech, finally throwing up my hands on Bulletproof and admitting that I need to stick it in a drawer for a little while until I figure out where it twisted wrong on me, and dealing with a truly ugly cold. Since I'm already on antibiotics for another condition, I have to assume that I 1) have the most apathetic immune system in the world, or 2) I am unleashing Captain Tripps upon you all. I am truly sorry if I have inadvertently caused the apocalypse.)

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