Rico Slade Will Give You a Big Sloppy Kiss

Rico Slade will rip the throat out of anybody who says otherwise.

FTFY

TY

Guess I should read this book, huh?

I haven't yet - but I want to so bad. It looks so fun.

Too bad I have stuff in front of it that I actually HAVE to read.

HAVE to read? That sounds serious.

Will Rico Slade rip our throats out if we don't read it?

SGJ's blurb is badass. Why, exactly, is that NOT on the front cover?

Well - at least they are good books that I HAVE to read.

(I also want to read them - that's how they got in that position)

Because we didn't get blurbs for this book for some reason (probably because my publisher chose to release it a lot earlier than he had originally intended so we didn't have the time to collect blurbs). We recycled some blurbs that I received in the past for my other books ans used them for the book's Amazon listing and online promotion. The back cover doesn't have any blurbs. Only the book's description.

SGJ blurbed my book, My Heart Said No, But the Camera Crew Said Yes! I think what he says is a lot more applicable to that book than this one. And it's not on the cover of that book either. Maybe it should be considering it's probably the best blurb I've ever received, but the book's cover design is really great and I don't know if it would have looked as good with the blurb. Maybe if the cover artist and designer had included it in the design rather than the publisher putting it on after the fact.

Actually, I just checked the amazon page for My Heart Said and the blurbs are now missing. I guess I need to contact the publisher to see what that's all about.

Man, your publisher needs to get onto that shit. Blurbs like that are gold, and definitely get a lot of people looking that might not have before. Why would they not get blurbs for this book? That seems crazy to me.

I added this to my post after you read it: "probably because my publisher chose to release it a lot earlier than he had originally intended so we didn't have the time to collect blurbs."

I guess we could have gotten some after the book's publication and used them on the Internet (it's too late for the cover).

Personally, I don't think blurbs help so much as far as sales unless they are written by a "big name" considering the author has a large readership and some of them will end up reading the book because of the blurb. I don't really trust blurbs. I assume they are almost always exaggerated and ignore them. I usually choose to read books based on who wrote them and what they are about.

I think you'd be surprised how many people read blurbs and take interest if someone they respect and enjoy has something nice to say about the book in question.

I know my interest would perk up if I saw SGJ blurbing some book by some nobody that I've never heard of before. You know what I mean? So, receiving something like that and not using it to its full potential just seems rather careless to me.

Yes, sometimes blurbs are hyperbolic in nature, but that's sort of the point. Authors don't write them for fun. They write them because they were passionate about what they read, about the author, about supporting the author. They're there to promote the book and show that someone, the person picking up your book, enjoyed the hell out of it and recommends you buy it and enjoy the hell out of it too. And people think, man, SGJ. I just read his latest book and it was fucking amazing, so if he's saying that this guy is, too, then, maybe, I guess, he probably is, and I should probably by this and read it and enjoy the fuck out of it. And besides all that, it looks like if I don't this Rico Slade guy will rip my fucking throat out.

Yeah, I guess they help sales. It just depends on the person. Like a blurb probably wouldn't cause me to buy a book but it could work on you. Regardless of that, as a writer, it really means a lot to get a blurb from an author whose work I love.

Exactly. So you should use it. I'm not saying I buy books based solely on blurbs. But if I've heard something about a book, say, a crime book, and I pick it up and it's blurbed by Otto Penzler, James Ellroy, Megan Abbott, you know, I'm probably gonna continue along the link of thinking that I should probably buy it. Blurbs are good. That's all I'm saying. They aren't worthless. They aren't there just to boost the writer's ego because it's an author they admire. I just think it's horribly careless of your publisher to pass them off as worthless. And, for you to almost be of the same mind.

Yeah, maybe I should contact some authors after the fact to blurb this book. One advantage to that is there wouldn't be a deadline for them to send their blurbs back, so there would be less, "Sorry, I don't have the time" responses.

I bought Rico Slade due to wanting to support a fellow Cultie. But when I saw SGJ's blurb in there - I got a little more excited to read your work. No lie.

Though that might not mean much...

Pete Goutis
ChuckPalahniuk.net
Book Club Guy

It happens. That's what I'm saying.

I may even see if OWC would want it reviewed and give it a read and a review, if you'd want a OWC blurb. Happy to help out a fellow Cultie.

Oh yeah. There's no blurbs on the cover, but I forgot about the "Praise for Bradley Sands" page at the beginning, which included various blurbs from different books.

I wanted to get a blurb from Ron Jeremy after the fact for Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy, but his website doesn't list an email. Instead, it has this "contact me" box directly on the site where you write a message and press the SEND button, but the damn thing didn't work.

Yeah, Praise sections are good. Always nice, on a new author's book to have one or two special quotes on the cover though. I think.

That would be perfect! I love when book's have blurbs from people that just make you laugh.

Like Brandon was using one from his mom. Great stuff.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Although someone else is supposed to review it for OWC. I should probably give him a nudge because I sent it to him when the book came out a while back.

Oh, okay. Well, I'll leave them with it then. Just saying, I would have been happy to do so. If they end up not doing it, give us a buzz.

Thanks. I'll be contacting you then if it doesn't work out with the other reviewer, but I'm assuming it will. I'm just pretty behind right now about things like this because I've been really busy with my thesis for grad school, along with graduation. But that happened Saturday, so now I have more free time.

On a different subject, I had this idea to get blurbs from various people named Bradley Sands. Maybe I should do that for Rico Slade. One night a while back, I sent friends requests to everyone on facebook who shares my name. A few accepted the request. Most did not (or ignored it). I received a few "Do I know you?" messages, which I thought were hilarious (I think one was sent like six months after I sent the friends request). I told one guy that we had met at last year's Bradley Sands convention and he seemed to think there was actually a Bradley Sands convention. There was also one teenage Bradley Sands who I talk to sometimes. We "chatted" for like an hour once. Sometimes it really throws me off to see his name and status updates in my "news roll" or whatever it's called.

That'd actually be pretty funny.

At this point, I've probably agonized over my review longer than Bradley took to write the book.

I liked it. I didn't want to like it. I've never read anything like it. I have no idea why Bradley Sands would write this. The thing is even more ridiculous than you would anticipate based on the cover or any preview you may have read. Is it Gonzo? Absurdist? I don't know! It's silly and scatological and violent and profane... All good things really, but so over the top that you want to rip Bradley Sands's fucking throat out for thinking that he can get away with putting all of together the way he did.

Is it good literature? You already know it isn't. It's not even literature. It's the literary equivalent to chugging a two-liter of Code Red and a bag of Oreos while playing Xbox. It has no merit whatsoever. And I enjoyed the shit out of it. The ending, I thought, was rushed; after a long build-up, the book wrapped-up entirely too quickly for me.

But it did what it was supposed to do!

Sometimes in our quest to find beautiful deep "literature," we forget why we started reading. I started reading for entertainment. I started reading so I could lose myself in something. Sometimes for something fun. Sometimes for something sad. It doesn't always have to be something deep and metaphorical. I think we forget that.

I keep rewriting the same things....

Heh, Tuffy. But what is "literature?"

To be fair to Tuff - he does keep saying that he enjoyed it. That's why he's having a hard time reviewing it.

I missed this post.

I don't know if I would be classified as a "new author." Rico Slade is my fourth book. My first one came out in 2006.

Yeah, but, also, to be fair, I'd never heard of you before you joined The Cult.

There's no need to defend yourself, man. I'm not having a go. Truly, I'm not. I'm looking forward to reading this book and likely, if I enjoy it, your others. By "new", I simply mean, "not a NY bestseller, a guy on an indie press etc."

And, yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with Pete. Sometimes we get so caught up in the other stuff that we forget that reading can be super-fun. Not to say I don't have fun reading a literary masterpiece that is riddled with metaphorical meaning and themes that can change people's lives. But, sometimes, it's fun to just read something you don't have to think about too much. Pure entertainment. Action! Action! Action! That's why I love pulp and old noir so much. It's just entertaining. Great characters. Great settings and tones. Great situations. Fun for the whole family.

Rico Slade rips out everybody's throats! What's not to love?

Thanks, Matthew.

But I joined the Cult in 2005.

Although I'm just messing with you and taking what you just wrote literally, especially consider I've never posted much. Although I've participated more recently.

Hmmm...

I'm not gonna hit the ball back anymore. Good luck with the book, mate. And, seriously, if you can't get this OWC business organised, or the reviewer is taking too long (I mean, how long does it take, it's only like 100 pages), then tell them I'm keen to do it and we'll see what happens. I'll whip up a review in no time.

Thanks.

I'm also still available for blurbs. lol

You know, it probably wouldn't look too bad having: "Pete Goutis, Official Cult (Chuckpalahniuk.net) Book Club Moderator" on the end of a quote.

Seriously, anyway you can get Chuck's name near a quote is good. People will associate the book club moderator of Chuck's site with Chuck, obviously, and that's not a bad thing.

I'll keep that in mind. So what would you put after your name and the comma? I thinking about maybe putting something besides "author of whatever" during the rare occasions when someone asks me for a blurb. Like: "Bradley Sands, golden monkey of the future." Although I guess I would lose out on free advertising.

Oh, you posted while I was writing the comment, Matthew. Yeah, actually that would look good.

Well, I have yet to have a novel published, so I don't think I'd say anything like that. Just "Doc O'Donnell, Outsider Writers Collective", probably.

Pete Goutis, internationally renowned steel saw player?

There's actually a few reviews of the book that I could mine for blurbs.

Jeremy Robert Johnson got a Chuck quote for his book, Angel Dust Apocalypse. So that's an example of what I was talking about earlier as far as blurbs being highly effective when they're written by big name authors.

I'm pretty sure it was received "after the fact," so his publisher spent a little money to get the printer to add the quote to the book's front cover. Actually, we have the same publisher, although I'm published by one of their imprints and work with a different editor. He handles most of the publishing aspects as well.

And Pete: Can you really play a saw? I would like to see it.

No - I'm a liar

I was just trying to think of something funny. I have no idea what I would want to follow my blurb. I don't think I would want Mod of Chuck Palahniuk's official site. But I would want something closer to:

Peter Goutis,
ChuckPalahniuk.com
Book Club Mod

What? That says exactly what you said you didn't want it to say.

I don't mind using the chuckpalahniuk url. But I don't want to use the chuck palahniuk name. They both mean the same thing, but one seems more professional to me.

Tuffy the Dump Truck,
Renowned Asshole

Matt O'Donnell, The Accent.

"Rico Slade fucking killed me from laughter"

Jay Slayton-Joslin, English Stereotype

Oh, I'm not having trouble reviewing RS because I *liked* it; I've no problem admitting I enjoy offbeat or lowbrow things. Trouble is I feel like a farmer what's been abducted by aliens and anally probed, and now I have to not only explain it to the sherriff, I now gotta tell Missus Farmer tha a finger or two might be a welcome.

Rico Slade is very conventional in comparison to my earlier books. I wonder how you would react to them. Some have classified them as "experimental" although I think I would disagree.

I'd suggest just describing in your review exactly why you are having trouble reviewing it.