So bad, it’s good.
Okay, now I really WANT to read this piece of trainwreck.
See, kids? You can be bad and famous! That is, if you are really good at being bad.
*****
Snatched from maeglinyedi:
Once upon a time, there was PublishAmerica, a self-proclaimed traditional, quality publisher, who took a shot at sci-fi and fantasy authors on one of their websites, saying that sci-fi and fantasy authors are:
writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters.
At that point, PublishAmerica was already suspected of being a vanity press. Yet they said about themselves: We review not only the quality but also the genre of their work.... Like all serious book publishing companies we have to be picky as we can only accept the works that meet our requirements in both areas."
A group of sci-fi and fantasy authors got together, to discover just how picky PublishAmerica would be and what they thought 'quality' was. They wrote 'Atlanta Nights', by Travis Tea. They set out to write the worst possible novel they could:
The book was full of mistakes and inside jokes. There are two chapter 12s, no chapter 21 and a computer-generated chapter 34. Two authors wrote about a wedding of two characters, and there are many misplaced modifiers, malapropisms, spacing errors, incorrect descriptions and laughably bad writing (from Sherwood Smith's chapter 1: "Her [breasts] belonged to a beautiful face carved out of ice and whipped cream, with a pair of glowing
emerald eyes"). Even the author's name was a joke when spoken fast.
The authors offered 'Atlanta Nights' to PublishAmerica, and what do you know...PublishAmerica immediately contacted them to offer them a contract for publication of the book.
The authors then went public with their hoax, and awwww, PublishAmerica withdrew their offer to publish it.
But fear not. You can read all about 'Atlanta Nights' on www.travistea.com. You can even buy the book there (all profit goes to charity), and you can download it for free as an ebook.
Be sure to check out the 'official responses' to the book. Here are a few gems:
"The world is full of bad books written by amateurs. But why settle for the merely regrettable? Atlanta Nights is a bad book written by experts." — T. Nielsen Hayden
"Gripping, squeezing, mashing, bashing, this book will give a man cramps and a woman a prostate. It delivers." — Vera Nazarian
"Don't fail to miss it if you can!" — Jerry Pournelle
"ATLANTA NIGHTS: I haven't been this stunned since my colonoscopy." — Dennis L. McKiernan
"That's so bad it makes my skin hurt." — Raymond E. Feist
"The skin of your back, Ray?" — Dave Smeds
"No, actually, just about all of it, 'cept maybe this little spot of callous on the ball of my left foot . . ." — Raymond E. Feist
See, kids? You can be bad and famous! That is, if you are really good at being bad.
*****
Snatched from maeglinyedi:
Once upon a time, there was PublishAmerica, a self-proclaimed traditional, quality publisher, who took a shot at sci-fi and fantasy authors on one of their websites, saying that sci-fi and fantasy authors are:
writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters.
At that point, PublishAmerica was already suspected of being a vanity press. Yet they said about themselves: We review not only the quality but also the genre of their work.... Like all serious book publishing companies we have to be picky as we can only accept the works that meet our requirements in both areas."
A group of sci-fi and fantasy authors got together, to discover just how picky PublishAmerica would be and what they thought 'quality' was. They wrote 'Atlanta Nights', by Travis Tea. They set out to write the worst possible novel they could:
The book was full of mistakes and inside jokes. There are two chapter 12s, no chapter 21 and a computer-generated chapter 34. Two authors wrote about a wedding of two characters, and there are many misplaced modifiers, malapropisms, spacing errors, incorrect descriptions and laughably bad writing (from Sherwood Smith's chapter 1: "Her [breasts] belonged to a beautiful face carved out of ice and whipped cream, with a pair of glowing
emerald eyes"). Even the author's name was a joke when spoken fast.
The authors offered 'Atlanta Nights' to PublishAmerica, and what do you know...PublishAmerica immediately contacted them to offer them a contract for publication of the book.
The authors then went public with their hoax, and awwww, PublishAmerica withdrew their offer to publish it.
But fear not. You can read all about 'Atlanta Nights' on www.travistea.com. You can even buy the book there (all profit goes to charity), and you can download it for free as an ebook.
Be sure to check out the 'official responses' to the book. Here are a few gems:
"The world is full of bad books written by amateurs. But why settle for the merely regrettable? Atlanta Nights is a bad book written by experts." — T. Nielsen Hayden
"Gripping, squeezing, mashing, bashing, this book will give a man cramps and a woman a prostate. It delivers." — Vera Nazarian
"Don't fail to miss it if you can!" — Jerry Pournelle
"ATLANTA NIGHTS: I haven't been this stunned since my colonoscopy." — Dennis L. McKiernan
"That's so bad it makes my skin hurt." — Raymond E. Feist
"The skin of your back, Ray?" — Dave Smeds
"No, actually, just about all of it, 'cept maybe this little spot of callous on the ball of my left foot . . ." — Raymond E. Feist
posted by Whitney @ 2:28 PM
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