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by Edward Champion

A Special Message from Albert Yonklas, Respected Author

Damn readers! Damn them all to hell! They want me to sign their books and throw my wrist out of alignment. They expect me to add an extra horizontal whoosh when I cross my T. They want to compare the signature that I offer in one book to that of another. Well, don’t they know that I apply my creative acumen to my work? It’s there in my National Book Award-winning novel, Butterflies in Toledo. The groupies may have been smelly, but they were just competent in bed. Even so, don’t they realize that I’m not entitled to give these atavistic rodents anything? That they have B.O. and bad breath?

yonklas.jpgWell, the time has come for conformity, dammit! And this is why I must thank Margaret Atwood for taking a stand. Forget Iraq. Forget poverty. Forget AIDS. No! The single most important issue facing the world today is placating authors. And I, Albert Yonklas, will not rest until I am thoroughly pampered and fellated to the high heavens. That goes for readers. That goes for publishers. And that goes even for other published authors. They can all suck my capacious penis, if you catch my drift.

Very few authors are willing to confess the truth: that readers are soulless cretins who should just buy our damn books and shut the hell up. But the time has come to teach these troglodytes a lesson. You want me to sign your book? Without a complimentary blowjob? Take a number, amigo.

You actually want me to sign your book with a pen? And add a personal message? Or perhaps a funny little diagram? Who the hell do you think you are? I’m not a cartoonist. I’m a novelist! You’re not! And you are entitled to a signature as soulless and indistinct as your foolish questions. Where do I get my ideas? I’ll tell you where. By glimpsing up your stinking piehole!

I’ll never tour again thanks to the LongPen. You want a piece of me? Catch it on video. Video is more intimate, you slimebags! The fans prefer it! We have no basis for this, but everyone know it’s true. And before all you leftist scum start bitching about the environment, the LongPen is environmentally sound! I’m not getting the Al Gore crowd on my ass.

I have to hand it to Peggy Atwood. What a great scam to get some pocket money from the publishing industry. And what a great way to remove audiences from the equation. Why, even poets are duped!

Albert Yonklas is the bestselling author of Butterflies in Toledo, It Happened in December and Harold’s Nightmare. He is currently seeing a heart specialist about his high blood pressure, which he blames on his readers.

by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Bloggers, Voices, and Sales

While we’re on the subject of blog importance, however inflated, I agree in the main with Lauren Beckham Falcone’s article. Blogs provide fresh and original voices online, but it takes something truly special and distinguished to connect a blogger-turned-author with a broader readership. I think Ana Marie Cox’s book tanked because there simply wasn’t a market for Animal House-style political satire. It was the book, stupid.

But I also believe Cox’s hype kinda killed it. Nobody cared about how cute or charismatic Cox was (just as they didn’t when Jay McInerney was thrown all the publicity money for The Good Life, which also tanked). And the book didn’t sell, despite Cox receiving something in the range of five New York Times articles (along with ancillary media attention that most authors would kill for) during the week the book was released.

But, more simply put, this was not a book that interested people outside of Washington and New York wonks.

What matters most of all is voice, and whether a voice can connect to a significant readership.
I find it curious that Pamela Ribon’s success was unnoted (and, as she told me recently, is generally unobserved). Her first novel, Why Girls Are Weird, sold because she was able to communicate topics to people in a fresh and interesting way. Her blog helped, but ultimately it was about the book connecting with an audience.

This doesn’t suggest that writing books should be entirely about connecting with mainstream audiences and, of course, all this is idle conjecture on a Sunday afternoon. I’m certainly no marketing expert. But I should point out that, for publishers who believe that quirky voices don’t sell or connect with an audience, Mark Z. Danielewski’s Only Revolutions hit #13 this week on the New York Times bestselling list — observed yesterday by John Freeman.

It all boils down to this:

1) Write book that connects with audience
2) ?
3) PROFIT!