Bubba, Buy My Book

After my last couple of entries I wanted to put up something a little more on the light side and a little more true to what I created this blog to be.

Only problem is I am supposed to be writing, right now. So I don’t really have the time to sit down and come up with something new – so I thought I would put up a blog entry that was originally a guest-blog on another website.

Hope this gives you a giggle to get your day back into the funny waters.

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RG2E FEATURED AUTHOR STEVE VERNON
“BUBBA, BUY MY BOOK!”
All right.
First off, I’d like to thank D.D. Scott for having me here today.

Secondly, I’d like to thank Bubba.

Finally, let me make a confession.

I am lousy at parties. Heck, I can’t even spell the word shmuu…shmoos…schmoozing.
(thank you Spell Check)

I’m the kind of fellow who will sort of slide in through the back door and drift over to the munch table and stand next to the pizza dip for the rest of the evening.

(mmmm, pizza)

I’m just not that good at small talk. I’m more comfortable with writing. Way more comfortable. You get me behind the keyboard and I’m as smooth as silk and nearly twice as dangerous. I’m a writing fool – but I’m foolish when it comes to selling these books. Which is why I started hanging around D.D. Scott’s WG2E in the first place.

It’s simple, see. I read about how D.D. Scott was selling books faster than goose grease through a short puppy. I read how people were just lining up to buy her books and I figured if I hang around her long enough then some of her marketing brilliance was going to rub off on me.

And, of course, D.D. being the wonderful host that she is invited me to hang around even longer than she ought to have. We’re talking the stray dog syndrome – you see that mangy old yellow something-or-other Heinz-and-a-half wet dog that you just have to throw a ham bone to?

That’s me.

“Steve,” she told me. “Why don’t you get involved in my FEATURED AUTHOR program at RG2E?”

Well, first off, I had to go and Google to make sure the RG2E wasn’t really some sort of a Star Wars character – but then once I found out exactly what the RG2E FEATURED AUTHOR PROGRAM was, I became mildly interested – but oddly cautious.

“D.D.” I said. “I want to learn how to sell more of my e-books. Are you sure this will help?”

“Well Steve,” D.D. said – thinking to herself that she really ought to be writing her next book. “Why don’t you tell me what all you have done in the way of marketing?”

“I was hoping you’d ask me that.” I said. “Let me tell you what I’ve done. I think it’s brilliant. I started out my advertising campaign by writing BUY MY BOOK on a hundred different men’s room walls – in a hundred different shades of marker – along with leaving my phone number.”

“And how did that work out for you?” D.D. asked – looking around hopefully for some sort of an exit.

“Not so well,” I said. “I did receive an awful lot of interesting phone calls and enough lurid and sticky phone talk to paint about three hundred and sixty-two more shades of grey – but other than that I didn’t sell so much as a copy.”

“So what did you do then?”

“I diversified,” I explained, after making a quick run to the Spell Check to figure out how to spell the word diversified. “I tried leaving similar messages on the walls of a hundred different women’s rooms – which brought me to my first arrest.”

“Say what?”

“My arrest. I tried to explain to the security guard that I was only marketing in that ladies room – and then I tried explaining to those two policemen that the security guard telephoned – and then I tried explaining to the judge why those two policemen had brought me to his courtroom – and then I tried explaining to Bubba – and he told me that he understood – that he wasn’t guilty either.”

“And then what happened?”

“Well, that led me to a ninety day intensive hands-on seminar on life in the local jailhouse – which I believe will come in useful in writing my upcoming prison novel entitled A PEN IN THE PEN – A WRITER’S LIFE BEHIND BARS.”

“Well Steve,” D.D. said – discretely fumbling through her pockets with the hopes of discovering a ninja escape smoke bomb – or at the very least a can of pepper spray. “Maybe you ought to try some social networking. Have you tried Facebook?”

“I tried it,” I said. “But Mark Zuckerberg said my face looked funny. So then I tried twittering, but the birds asked me to kindly get out of their tree. So then I tried spamming on message board forums – but that spam looked so good I just had to get out the fry pan and slice me a few slices and…”

(this interview has been interrupted while the author Steve Vernon puts on his pants and goes down to the kitchen to hunt for Spam)

While I was out in the kitchen D.D. went through her pockets again. She still couldn’t find that ninja smoke bomb but she did find a slightly-used peanut butter cup that she tucked back into her pocket.

“You’ve got some Spam on your beard, Steve,” D.D. helpfully said.

“What, did I miss some?” I asked, discretely trying to lick the Spam from off of the corners of my beard.

“What else did you do?”

“Well, I thought about buying some five star reviews – but there was that whole money thing – so instead I decided to try writing some sock puppet reviews – only all of my socks were in the wash – so I tried ventriloquist dummy reviews – but then the dummy told me that my lips were moving – so I give it all up as a bad idea.”

“And then you came here,” D.D. said.

“No, not then,” I said. “I had one more brainstorm. I filled out five hundred message in a bottles with notes that read BUY MY BOOK and I corked them suckers up and I threw them one by one into the Atlantic Ocean.”

“Why the Atlantic Ocean?”

“Well you see the book I was trying to sell is called SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME. It’s a fast and funny novella that asks what if a team of old fart hockey players from the shores of Northern Labrador decided to challenge a tour bus full of vampires to a sudden death hockey game.”

“Why would vampires want to play hockey?”

“Well that’s just it,” I said. “These old boys did something to the vampires that peeved them off so much that there was no way on earth that they could do anything else besides take up the hockey challenge.”

“Well what did they do to make those vampires so mad at them?”

“I can’t tell you,” I said. “You’ll have to buy the e-book,” I said. “But that’s why I chose the Atlantic Ocean. Because Labrador is on the Atlantic.”

“That’s brilliant,” D.D. said. “Very creative.”

“Yeah, the judge thought so too, after he give me another ninety days for desecrating the environment – which is way worse than littering.”

“You’re back in jail?”

“Faster than you can say hello Bubba,” I explained. “Which is why I really want to take part in your FEATURED AUTHOR program here at the RG2E. You see, my lawyer is pretty sure that this qualifies as some sort of community service…”

At which point D.D. threw the peanut butter cup onto the floor, performed a couple of kung fu side-kicks that would have made the spirit of David Carradine sit up and grin – before she performed a triple somersault backwards and belly-flipped through an open window.

The last I saw of her she was running for her keyboard.

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If this post moved you to pick up one of my books why don’t you start with SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME? I guarantee you that little yarn of vampires and hockey will please fans of hockey, vampires and just plain good old-fashioned storytelling.

It is available on Kindle for a measly 99cents – and if you still aren’t certain just click this picture and check out all of those solid reviews.

 

I know. I know. Most of you are thinking to yourself – why buy this when it is just another vampire/hockey novella? I mean I’m sure you have already read about a billion vampire/hockey novellas. I’m certain that you have got cases of them stored in your attic. Well don’t you see that if you grab this copy it will make your collection complete. Pick it up of Kobo just by hitting this picture. With your mouse clicker, not your fist.

Keep on grinning. Life looks better that way.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

 (And – in the interest of full disclosure – a VERY different version of this blog entry was originally posted at the Readers Guide to E-Publishing)

Follow-up on Moncton

Well, they caught him.

They cornered him and he put up his hands and dropped his guns and said “I’m done.”

If you want to read about it here’s a link to the Globe and Mail. They seem to have a good solid coverage of the event.

It will be all over the internet as well if you really want to dig into it.

As for me, I have said my say and I’ll let it all go. Like I said, I am not a politically minded man. I just felt moved enough yesterday to put it down in words.

I will say this.

I don’t believe my words should be treated as any sort of gospel. It is just what I felt and what I figured.

I am no Solomon.

I think that’s where most of the problems of this world begin. Once you begin treating any one person’s thoughts as a gospel or a creed or a reason to live you are beginning to court trouble.

Once you begin taking those thoughts and opinions as gospel enough to warrant the outright enforcement of such a belief you step right into the realm of the deep doo-doo.

That’s how Crusades and jihads and Holy Wars in all their many evil forms get started. Just as soon as one person says something along the lines of “You don’t know what you are talking about and I’m going to make you see it differently” you are asking for a nuclear arm wrestling match.

The truth is we won’t ever step out of this dark age until the entire human race can figure out how to just do their own thing without hurting other people or worrying what other people are doing – just so long as nobody gets hurt.

I know this is naive.

I know this isn’t realistic.

Too bad.

I am just a dude who has figured out how to make a half of a half of a half of a living off of my ability to make stuff up.

In my opinion the pagans come closest to getting it right when they say “Above all else do no harm.”

But even then, I have heard way too many pagans going on about how mean and twisted and misguided those poor foolish Christians are – and right away we are back in that trap of “maybe if I hit you on the head with this stick you will change your way of thinking and agree that I most certainly have the only way of looking at things.”

So I am going to close the door on this discussion and let it go. Thanks to all those good folks who took a look at my blog and heard me out.

Keep a grin on. Life looks better that way.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon