i’ll just leave this here

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Bradley Sands

For Writers: On Promotion

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Bradley Sands

I consider myself knowledgeable about book promotion, but not a very good promoter recently due my inability to do much of it due to problems. But a lot of the ways that people promote their books seems wrong to me. They promote the same over and over again. It is boring. It seems desperate. These are the only times that you should EVER link to your books Amazon page: your book is released, your book is now available for Kindle, the price for the Kindle book has gone drastically down (particularly if it is now free), and if a review is extremely interesting. You should not link to it every time someone writes a new review for your book. Do not link to a review on a book blog if it is not interesting. Instead, keep a list of links to reviews on your website if you want. Do not ask people to buy your book as “a birthday present” to you. Do not ask them to buy it to help you out financially. Unless you are more financially needy than the typical poverty-stricken writer, people do not give a shit about helping you out financially. They are more interested in reading your book.

There are a limited amount of ways to promote your book. When you run out of ways to promote it, you should start promoting yourself. Make people think, “Hey! This guy is awesome! I want to read his book!” Constantly be calling attention to yourself without being a spam king or being boring. This is a lot easier to do if you are humorous. But if you’re not, perhaps you live an interesting life that you can write about. If you do not lead an interesting life, do not write about it. No one wants to here about how depressed you are. If you feel the need to overshare, start a new facebook profile and send friend requests to people who can stand your blubbering. Do not use the same account to promote yourself and to complain about your problems.

Use different social media platforms to call attention to yourself, such as writing blog entries. Do the same thing with your talents as far as making videos for youtube or putting images on tumbl (because people seem to think jokes are always funnier when the joke is superimposed over an image). My friend, Vince Kramer, takes pictures of action figures having sex. He is a great promoter even though he may not know he’s promoting his book this way.

Keep people coming back to your website or wanting to follow your status updates on facebook and twitter. Don’t bombard them with advertisements. Write about books that you like and other things. If you’re a very social person, use this to your advantage and talk to as many people as possible, but don’t mention your book if it’s not relevant. Stop being so lame.

Go the Fuck To Sleep

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Bradley Sands

A while back, a person wrote a review of Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You and complained about the book’s profanity. This inspired me to write a review about the book, Go the Fuck to Sleep. Here it is:

I stumbled across this book on Amazon and thought it looked cute, so I bought it to read for my four-year-old at bedtime. I was looking forward to receiving it, but when I opened up the package, I was horrified to see a sleeping child surrounded by tigers. Children should not sleep in the presence of tigers. Tigers are dangerous! Had I noticed the tigers on the cover from the start, I never would have purchased the book. I thought they were just really big cats from some magical land like Oz or The Magical Land of the Really Big Cats.

I should have thrown the book straight in the trash after seeing the cover, but I’m not exactly made of money so I taped a page from a newspaper to hide the cover from Max and read it to him later that night. I started reading it and it was really great, but then I got to the last sentence on the first page and was horrified! I’ve never read such filthy language in a children’s book. I wanted to stop reading. I NEEDED to stop reading. But Max is the pushiest four year old I’ve ever met so he wouldn’t let me stop reading.

I read more and more of the book and felt intense nausea, but I had to continued because Max would have would have squirmed away and told me that he hated me if I stopped reading before the end. The publisher of this book should be ashamed of themselves for publishing such filth. Not a page went by without one usage of the f-word. And there was even one page with the word for excrement!

Page after page. A few of them even had children playing with tigers like on the cover! I’m mortified that Max will leave the house and spend the night sleeping in the zoo surrounded by deadly predators rather than sleep in his room surrounded by his 27 teddy bears. And then there’s that page with the child falling through the air attached to a parachute. Oh my Lord! I don’t know what’s more dangerous: a child spending time with tigers or jumping out of a plane to go skydiving.

This horrible book is only 18 pages, but it felt like an eternity while I was reading it. I’m surprised I didn’t have a heart attack before I finished reading its last obscene sentence.

And then I saw the final page with the biographical data of the evil evil men who wrote and illustrated the book. I didn’t read it aloud to Max because it always angers him whenever I accidentally read a page like this. But I was shocked…absolutely shocked to learn that not only did the author have a filthy mouth and advocate putting small children in dangerous situations, but he is also an anti-Semite. Even worse than an anti-Semite. He is a proponent for the extinction of all Jews. I will never, ever read his book, The End of the Jews, especially to Max. At that moment, I felt like I had just read a children’s book written by Adolf Hitler.

Shame on you, Amazon! Shame on you for your false advertising. You are to blame for not listing the book’s actual title. How was I supposed to know what the book was actually called when you censored the title’s filthy word? I never thought anyone would use THAT word in a children’s book title. I thought it was a Sumerian word or something. I thought the book would be educational. Teach Max a few words from an ancient language before he went to sleep. But no–instead he’s been talking like a hummus and salsa factory worker ever since I made possibly the biggest mistake of my life.

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I posted it on Amazon’s main site and their British site and the review received great comments (which is the main reason why I’m posting this blog entry). Check out the comments here -

Amazon

Amazon UK

Rico Slade is a Dick

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Bradley Sands

Last year, action movie superstar, Rico Slade, stole my identity and promised the American Decency Association all the money that my novella, Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You, made in July. I didn’t particularly want to give my book royalties to a bunch of douchebags, but Rico Slade threatened to punch me in the fucking face a bunch of fucking times if I didn’t. So today I was on the verge of writing out the check, and then something happened:

From: bradleysands@gmail.com
To: Rico Slade
Subject: Book Royalties

Hey, Rico.

I just checked my account because I was about to make out a check to the American Decency Association for the 1.2 million dollars that Rico Slade Will Kill You made in July, but only thirty-six cents was left. Can you please do me a favor and track down whoever took the money and kill them?

Take Care,

Bradley

From: Rico Slade
To: bradleysands@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

Dear wimp,

What the crap is this Take Care crap? Some gay shit?

Anyways doofus, I’ll get right on that killing the dudes who stole your 1.2 mil thing. I’ll track them down with my new tank and blast a cap in their ass. You gotta check this bitch out. It’s worth every dollar I paid for it.

Fuck Yeah!

Rico Slade

From: bradleysands@gmail.com
To: Rico Slade
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

Umm…did the tank cost $199,999.64?

From: Rico Slade
To: bradleysands@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

Holy crap! Are you a psychic or something?

From: bradleysands@gmail.com
To: Rico Slade
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

You spent the book royalties on a tank, didn’t you?

From: Rico Slade
To: bradleysands@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

Damn. That was your book royalties? Thought you were rich or some shit when I stole it out of your bank account. Damn.

From: bradleysands@gmail.com
To: Rico Slade
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

What the fuck? What the fuck, you stupid donut head! You piece of piece of steroid trash!

From: Rico Slade
To: bradleysands@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

Damn bro, that’s harsh.

From: bradleysands@gmail.com
To: Rico Slade
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

Listen. You need to return the tank and get my money back. I didn’t want to give any money to the American Decency Association anyway, but I always keep my promises. Even if you stole my identity and made the promise yourself.

From: Rico Slade
To: bradleysands@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

Sorry man, but the tank was on sale and they’re ain’t no refunds when you know how to rock. If you still want me to track down whoever stole your 1.2, I can punch myself in the fucking face a bunch of fucking times, but I ain’t laying down no death. True pimps never say die.

From: bradleysands@gmail.com
To: Rico Slade
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

Ain’t no refunds when you know how to rock? I don’t even know what that means. And it’s okay. You don’t have to “punch yourself in the fucking face a bunch of fucking times.” I’ll just donate the thirty-six cents that’s left from the royalties to the Decency Association. I didn’t want to give my money to those ass clowns anyway.

From: Rico Slade
To: bradleysands@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

Cool cool. Rico Slade out!

From: bradleysands@gmail.com
To: Rico Slade
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

Did you really need to write me back to tell me that?

From: Rico Slade
To: bradleysands@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Book Royalties

Your goddam right.

It is now safe to purchase Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You without contributing to Rico Slade’s tank fund or the American Decency Association’s malevolent quest to make America “decent.”

It Is All Happening Now

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Bradley Sands

Here is an expose about what author, Jeremy Robert Johnson, did during the decades between the release of his current book and his former book: http://bizarrocentral.com/2012/03/07/jeremy-robert-johnson-behind-the-music/

Here is a prose poem of mine that I wrote for the Amazing Stories of the Flying Spaghetti Monster anthology that ended up on the cutting room floor:

Global Pirating

Captain Jolly Jill Rotgut is very concerned with the environmental issues facing the world today. She is extremely concerned with the dangers of global warming. As she turns the wheel of the Shoddy Barnacle and orders her crew to decimate the sunbathers on the mainland, she thinks about the decisions that had brought her to this moment. Was all the looting and pillaging and decapitating worth becoming an environmental activist? Her first mate fires a cannonball into the belly of a tourist from Wisconsin and dives into the ocean to steal the postcards the deceased man bought from the beach’s gift shop. The pirate captain winces at the tattered remains. She wishes she could sail up and down the Long Island Sound without engaging in this sort of violence. She wishes she could show off her swashbuckling garb as smiling children wait for her on the shore so she can bring them candy. But those days are long gone. Pirates who revel in peace and love are attacked by the coast guard. The law enforcers of the sea are so intimidated by those who rape and murder and brew grog that they leave the pirates alone. Leave them alone so their mere existences will diminish the average temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and oceans. Smiling to herself, Captain Jolly Jill Rotgut admires the corpses decorating the blood-soaked sand and says, “Oh what an environmentally-conscious citizen o’ the world am I!”

To read Amazing Stories of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, buy it here.

Online Bizarro Writing Workshop

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Bradley Sands

Interested in writing bizarro fiction? If so, consider enrolling in the online workshop that I’m co-teaching with Garrett Cook in April. It should be a great time.

Garrett is the author of Jimmy Plush, Teddy Bear Detective, Archelon Ranch, and Murderland Part 1 and 2.

My own books include Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You, Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy, Please Do Not Shoot Me in the Face: A Novel, and My Heart Said No, But the Camera Crew Said Yes! I’m also the former editor of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens.

I have taught writing at a rehab center, a high school, online, the summer writing program at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, online, and The Public School New York.

For more information about the workshop, click here.

Beachfront Property

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Bradley Sands

Back when I was a teenager, I was returning home from a trip with my parents. We drove past my old elementary school. I noticed that the front of it was set up as if it were a beach with chairs, towels, umbrellas, and sandcastles. When we drove behind it, there was an ocean.

This was peculiar. There had never been an ocean there before. I asked my parents about it. They told me the town had created an artificial ocean for the sake of tourism.

We arrived at our house. Across the block was a small body of water that connected to the new ocean. Behind the water were the houses that had always been across the street in the same positions. For some reason, their front yards had been filled haphazardly with trees. I knew the trees had been transported there whole rather than grown over a period of time. My neighbors’ cars were still in their driveways, but the location of the trees and the water made it impossible to move them. My mother said the value of our home had reason because it was now a beachfront property.

We got out of the car. I noticed that the small body of water across the street from us wasn’t as picturesque as it seemed. People and cars were floating in the water. Neither of them looked happy. I felt relief because we didn’t have to go through these problems because our house was on the other side of the street. But then I looked toward the book of the houses on our side of the street. There was a flood of water coming up from behind it, headed toward our house. People and their houses were floating in the water. There would be a town meeting with the men who had put together the artificial ocean on Wednesday.

I remember this dream from a few dream from a few nights ago somewhat vividly. I like to watch horror movies, but it’s no fun when most of my dreams are straight out of a horror movie. Nearly all of my dreams is a terrible nightmare, but this one was less nightmarish. Even though it’s usually very boring to listen to someone recount a dream, I hope this wasn’t boring.

I don’t think I’ve ever written on a blog entry on this site that didn’t have to do with some sort of promotion. I’ve been extremely lazy lately due to daily pain for the last couple of months. But I’ve been feeling a bit better due to buying a new awesome mattress. The reason why I feel pain is I clench my jaw while I sleep. I think this is mostly due to all the nightmares.