These are some of the Christmas bestsellers:
Archive for December, 2010
Most Popular Bizarro Books of the Christmas Season
Posted in Bizarro Books, Bizarro Fiction on December 19, 2010 by carltonmellickWhy Buying through Amazon.com is the Best Way to Support Writers
Posted in Uncategorized on December 15, 2010 by carltonmellickMany people believe that amazon.com is the big evil of the publishing world. Perhaps they are a bit evil from time to time, but they are an excellent company in a lot of other ways. I love amazon, both as a writer and as a consumer.
In my opinion, I believe that amazon.com is the best thing that ever happened to the small press. The idea that shopping through amazon is bad for publishers and writers couldn’t be further from the truth from my experience as a writer. In fact, I believe that the best way to support small press authors would be to only buy their books through amazon.com. Here’s why: the more copies of a book that sell through amazon.com, the more amazon.com recommends that book and connects it to other books.
In 2001, when my first book Satan Burger came out, I promoted it to readers who were into weird fiction. Due to the also-bought feature on amazon, my book became linked up to a very popular weird fiction book: House of Leaves. For the next three years, Satan Burger was the #1 recommended book with House of Leaves. This launched my career and even though I made less profit per book than copies that were sold at smaller sites like Shocklines.com, I still sold hundreds of copies of the book that wouldn’t have sold otherwise. I’d rather get tons of people reading my books and make just a buck or two per copy sold than make a lot of money per book sold. Ever since Satan Burger was connected to House of Leaves, I was making $500-1000 per month on just that one book, which was enough for a 23 year old with a low cost of living to write full time without need of a day job. My dream of writing as a career became a reality, and it couldn’t have happened without amazon.com.
Flash forward to the current day, Satan Burger is selling just as well as ever because amazon continues to link it up to other products, which keeps it in the public’s eye. There isn’t another bookstore in the country that would keep this book shelved that long. I’ve got 27 more books in print now, many of which sell just as well or better than Satan Burger did. And, due to also-boughts, I’ve become the number one author connected to Christopher Moore. There isn’t a bookseller in the world that would put a small press author’s book alongside a mega seller like Christopher Moore, or Chuck Palahniuk, or House of Leaves. Amazon does this, because it connects things based on what readers buy, not on what the big book industry thinks readers should be buying.
So the best way to support an author, especially a small press author, is to only buy their books through amazon.com. And these days, amazon allows much better discounts so that the publisher and author make more money when books are sold through amazon than anywhere else. This includes books sold directly from our websites. That is, unless we were to charge far more for our books, which would be unfair to the reader. It would also be a lot more work for us, and take much, much longer for the reader to receive the books.
Perhaps amazon.com is a bit on the evil side. They have pulled some cheap tricks to destroy the competition in the past, and will likely continue to do so. But as of now, at this point in time, they are a great company. You should know that the best way to support an author is to buy through amazon.com. At least at this point in time.
OUT NOW: “Whargoul” by Dave Brockie
Posted in Bizarro Authors, Bizarro Books, Uncategorized on December 12, 2010 by carltonmellick
GWAR fans rejoice, the first novel by singer Dave Brockie (AKA Oderus Urungus) is finally here! As somebody who has been a fan of Gwar for the past 20 years it’s cool to see Eraserhead Press releasing a book by this guy.
Here’s more info:
WHARGOUL
by Dave Brockie
I Destroyed Your Life
I Raped Your Wife
I Am the Fucking Whargoul
From the killing grounds of Stalingrad to the death camps of the holocaust. From torture chambers in Iraq to race riots in the United States, the Whargoul was there – killing and raping. It is a beast born in bullets and shrapnel, feeding off of pain, misery, and hard drugs. Cursed to wander the Earth without the hope of death, it is reborn again and again to spread the gospel of hate, abuse, and genocide. But what if it’s not the only monster out there? What if there’s something worse?
From Dave Brockie, the twisted genius behind GWAR, comes a novel about the darkest days of the twentieth century. The modern world is dying and Brockie is here to put a bullet between its eyes and violate the corpse.
This is all-out fucking war!
Get it at amazon.com
Out now: “Christmas on Crack”
Posted in Bizarro Authors, Bizarro Books on December 8, 2010 by carltonmellickHere’s a perfect Christmas stocking stuffer for you:
CHRISTMAS ON CRACK
Perverted Christmas Tales for the whole family!*
(* As long as every member of your family is over the age of 18.)
It’s a dark and seedy side of Christmas that you didn’t know about. A Christmas underworld where Santa gets dominated by Peppermint women and Frosty is a transvestite stripper. There’s elf sluts, toy orgies, and giant flesh-eating Christmas crabs that shoot lasers.
That’s right.
Lasers.
It’s the holiday season, bitches, so strap on your sugar plum ball gag, bend yourself over the Yule log, and get ready for Kris Kringle to shove some Christmas cheer up your ass!
Featuring stories by Jordan Krall, Jeff Burk, Kevin L. Donihe, Cameron Pierce, Kirsten Alene, Kevin Shamel, Edmund Colell, and Andrew Goldfarb.
Get it at amazon.com
Athena Villaverde: a bizarro author to watch
Posted in Bizarro Authors, Bizarro Books on December 8, 2010 by carltonmellickEvery once in a while I mentor a new bizarro author that I think has a lot of potential. I work with them one on one helping them chapter by chapter, line by line, until they complete their first publishable work. The last successful author I mentored was Cameron Pierce, who went on to write great bizarro works such as Ass Goblins of Auschwitz and The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island. Recently, the latest author I have been mentoring is Athena Villaverde (pictured above). A young bizarro talent from Toronto, Canada.
Athena is inspired by two of my favorite authors, Kathe Koja and Francesca Lia Block, as well as a lot of Japanese anime that I love. Her stories tend to be cute and stylish yet dark and disturbing.
Her first book, Starfish Girl, is a great debut. I call it “Francesca Lia Block meets Bio Shock.” It’s about a post-apocalyptic underwater dome world where human beings are mutating into insane fish creatures. It’s about a cute teenaged gothic lolita girl with a starfish growing out of her head, who befriends an assassin with sea anemone hair. An awesome post-apocalyptic adventure with lovable characters and strange beautiful imagery.
Here is the official description:
In a post-apocalyptic underwater dome, there lives a girl with a starfish growing from her head. Her name is Ohime. She is the starfish girl.
Alone in this world, Ohime must fight for her life against lecherous crabmen, piranha people, and a yellow algae that is causing humans to mutate into fish. Until she meets Timbre, a woman with deadly sea anemone hair. Ohime thinks she is safe with her new protector and friend, but Timbre is on the run from a violent past. Now they must escape Timbre’s former master, the evil Dr. Ichii, who is determined to conquer the underwater dome . . . and destroy the starfish girl and her friend in the process.
You can get it at amazon.com
She also wrote a novelette called Clockwork Girl for the Bizarro Starter Kit (Purple). Clockwork Girl is about a poor girl who was disassembled and transformed into a living windup clockwork doll for a snobby rich girl. A very touching and heartbreaking story, like a bizarro Velveteen Rabbit.
Get it at amazon.com
Athena Villaverde adds a new element to the bizarro fiction genre that has been lacking for a while. I highly recommend paying attention to her work. She has several books in the works for Eraserhead Press.
Visit her website at: http://athenavillaverde.com/
This Year’s New Bizarro Author Series: The Magnificent Seven
Posted in Bizarro Authors, Bizarro Books, Bizarro Fiction on December 4, 2010 by carltonmellick
Kirk Jones, Steve Lowe, Nicole Cushing, Caris O’Malley, James Steele, Kirsten Alene, and Eric Hendrixson.
Last year was the first year of the New Bizarro Author Series, I spoke about it here: Introducing the NBAS. This year, there are 7 new brave souls entering the fray. And they are ready to beat all the odds stacked against them. They are calling themselves The Magnificent Seven, and so far have proven themselves to be nothing short of magnificent. Help support these authors by buying their books within the next 12 months. If they succeed in meeting their goal they will become bizarro fiction’s newest stars.
These are their books:
Uncle Sam’s Carnival of Copulating Inanimals by Kirk Jones
Reborn as an oozing humanoid composed of vitreous humor after a sudden death via a disembodied hand and a wood chipper, Gary Olstrom found no difficulty in saying goodbye to the life he once knew. After all, he had become quite adept at saying goodbye, to his right arm in a hardware store accident at eight, to his parents in a fiery car crash, to his right leg in a factory mishap, and to the only person who ever tried to help him in an untimely bus collision. What he never prepared for was saying goodbye to misfortune, until he found Uncle Sam’s Carnival of Copulating Inanimals.
Therein, Gary finds refuge training furniture to copulate before spectators who vomit in applause. But while Gary’s luck shifts for the better, cities left in the wake of the carnival’s visits disappear; many are murdered. With his pet desk Akimbo and his empty-socketed girlfriend-turned-futon, Liberty, Gary attempts to unravel this mystery, culminating in a re-imagining of America to rival that of Benedict Anderson’s! Well, not quite…but there is furniture porn.
Get it at amazon.com
Muscle Memory by Steve Lowe
Billy Gillespie wakes up one morning to discover his junk is gone. In its place is his wife’s junk. Billy is now Tina, and Tina is dead. That’s because Billy’s dead. His lifeless body is still in bed and empty beer bottles and a container of antifreeze litter the kitchen counter. Over the next 24 hours, Billy and an odd assortment of neighbors, all experiencing their own bouts of body switcheroo, try to figure out what happened and why. Can they do it before the Feds find Billy’s body? Was it aliens that caused this, or God, or the government? And did Edgar Winter really sleep with his sheep? Pro football Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw has those answers in a story that asks, What Would Kirk Cameron Do?
Get it at amazon.com
How To Eat Fried Furries by Nicole Cushing
Furries–you know, people in animal costumes. You may love them. You may hate them. But chances are, you have not considered eating them…until now!
Not since the early days of Monty Python has dark satire so subversive reared its ugly head! From the Hellmouth of the Heartland, Nicole Cushing brings you How To Eat Fried Furries–your guide on how to raise furries as livestock and cook `em up tender and tasty.
The cast of characters is as motley and grotesque as one would imagine given such a premise. There’s the misshapen, proto-furry cast of the ’70s action-adventure show, Ferret Force Five. Extraterrestrial Squirrels. The Amish and the even more despicable Pseudo-Amish.
Whether an avid Bizarro fan or a newcomer to this wave of weird fiction, you’re bound to be satisfied once you take a bite out of How To Eat Fried Furries.
Get it at amazon.com
The Egg Said Nothing by Caris O’Malley
Meet Manny. He’s your average shut-in with a penchant for late night television and looting local fountains for coins. With eight locks on his door and newspapers covering his windows, he’s more than a bit paranoid, too.
His wasn’t a great life, but it was comfortable–at least it was until the morning he awoke with an egg between his legs. But what might have been a curse becomes a charm as this unlikely event leads him to an all night diner, where he finds inedible pie, undrinkable coffee, and the girl of his dreams.
But can this unexpected chance at love survive after the egg cracks and time itself turns against him, dead-set on rerouting history and putting a shovel to the face of the one person who could bring real and lasting change to Manny’s world?
Get it at amazon.com
Felix and the Sacred Thor by James Steele
HUMANITY’S FATE IS IN THE HANDS OF HE WHO WIELDS THE SACRED THOR!
“Epic quests don’t involve the internet or TV! They involve sex toys and manly, hard-bodied, larger-than-life heroes defying physics, logic and insurmountable odds, spitting out quotable, highly marketable catchphrases all the while!”
–The Sacred Horse
Felix might not quite fit this description, but he’s trying. After retrieving the most powerful weapon in the world from the Sacred Horse and proving himself a pervert of the purest heart, he sets upon an epic quest to destroy the kamikaze alien invaders poised to eliminate the entire human race.
Invaders have implanted themselves in the college graduates standing in unemployment lines–the very backbone of the nation’s economy. They’ve positioned themselves in the city’s grease transmission system, without which America will starve to death in minutes. They threaten the digital children, who cannot survive without their Internet connections. They even threaten Bob.
College taught Felix how to please a horse. It didn’t prepare him for the challenge of using an upgradeable horse dildo as a weapon to free himself from his tyrannical bosses at work and become a warrior for humanity.
Get it at amazon.com
Love in the Time of Dinosaurs by Kirsten Alene
DINOSAURS! LOVE! WAR! MONASTIC LIVING!
Three days after his partner is bitten in half by a brachiosaur, a nameless monk meets the love of his life. Her name is Petunia. She is a dinosaur. But a twenty-year war between their species is about to come to a head, and only one will survive.
To be together the monk and the dinosaur must fight their way through hordes of pterodactyl samurai, anti-aircraft stegosaurs, gigantic kamikaze moths, and machine gun-wielding tyrannosaurs.
Love in the Time of Dinosaurs is a surreal war tale of forbidden love, betrayal, and magic kung-fu. Forget Jurassic Park, this is the greatest dinosaur story ever told.
Get it at amazon.com
Bucket of Face by Eric Hendrixson
Thirteen years after a police officer searching a suspected child molester’s home spilled a vial of silver pollen, America is still struggling with how to recognize its sentient fruit population. Charles is just a normal guy working at a doughnut shop until an apple and a banana shoot each other in a mafia dispute, leaving a briefcase full of foreign currency and a specimen bucket at the corner booth. When Charles turns the wiseguys into doughnuts and steals their luggage, hoping for a better life for himself and his kiwi fruit girlfriend, he finds himself in the middle of a mafia war. As his girlfriend travels the DC metro area, selling off the contents of the bucket, Charles finds he is the target of a seasoned hit-tomato, who happens to be the biggest Michael Jackson fan who ever lived.
Get it at amazon.com
COMING SOON: “Christmas on Crack”
Posted in Bizarro Books on December 1, 2010 by carltonmellickMy anthology of perverted bizarro Christmas stories will be out just in time for the holidays. It will feature stories by Jordan Krall, Jeff Burk, Kevin L. Donihe, Edmund Colell, Cameron Pierce & Kirsten Alene, Kevin Shamel, and a comic by Andrew Goldfarb.
Carlton Mellick III 