the fix is in
>>24728975Fantano doesn't know how to read.
>>24728975post the link
YOWZATHE HECKING INFLUENCERINO MADE A VIDEO???
well done op, you made this guy laugh
>>24728975Must I see this degen here too?
At least he reviews /lit/ books, unlike you retards who don't even have a goodreads account so aren't really helping promote other anons.
>>24729651kek you should get a tripcode >>24728975post the link, fantanos yt channel has nothing and reverse searching the image gives nothing
>>24728975I could tell it wasn't going to be very good because the author posted in his own shill thread like "wowwwee look, this book is about a loser, not a turbo-chad like most of /lit/ would try to write..." because I don't know why but everyone who tries to shill a book here thinks everyone else who has tried to shill a book here only writes about superheroes or pick-up artists or something.
>>24729710corndog zen was about a pickup artist though, he literally picked her up
>>24729651Well, Wallace, what /lit/ books have you helped promote?
Did Fantano beat /lit/ to the punch? This book only has 2 reviews on Goodreads. Also when did he start reviewing books?
>>24729808its not realno one can find the link and op didnt post it
>>24729815Oh lol. Pretty funny. Poor Wallace.
>>24729667This is Wallace. I didn’t start this thread. I told some friends I post about my book on here sometimes and they now occasionally make threads like this to bust my balls lol. All press is good press I suppose. >>24729710I wouldn’t say the book is about losers. It’s about people with limited means and their inability to keep up with an absurd changing world. I also never said that it’s different from other /lit/ works because it’s not about gigachads. I guess the cost of anonymity is that anyone can pretend to be you. It’s certainly not for everyone. I don’t think the classics or high lit crowd will enjoy it. I’m not a good editor and I’ve definitely taken flak for that. I think people who enjoy Joseph Heller and Vonnegut would enjoy it. There’s some moments that shine through imo but I understand some people aren’t gonna like it. It was my first stab at writing a book and I’ve tightened up my prose a lot since then. Going to try and traditionally publish my next book but when that (likely) doesn’t work out I’ll self publish it and post free ebooks here for you guys
>>24729838>absurd changing worldyou keep saying this but i dont understand what you meanare you just referring to how whores market themselves online and how thats an absurd change? i might be wrong but i feel like you mean how the world has changed since he grew up, right? what changes do you mean though?
>>24729844I mean more specifically that the media, political and technological environment changes faster than regular people can keep up with. In the book Kat has her customer service job replaced by some shitty automated check out that doesn’t do its job well. She then is inadvertently the subject of a BLM tier political mob for smirking in a viral video that shows a very drunk John accosting some influencer bimbo and her gay friend. John has the absurd job of selling scrap metal to the cartel for marijuana which he sells to employees at the dump. Mikey is the only one who thinks he has a regular job but he’s clueless. They all get wrapped up in a worthless quest to try and make money and escape this cycle that increasingly makes no sense and it all falls apart. Thats what I was trying to portray. A little sympathy for normie who is having his mind bent every direction in a world that he no longer has any context for.
>>24729844If you can't see the clown world we've evolved into the last 15 years you are lost >>24729838You should write women smutt books to get published, rewrite the long walk and replace it with women walking and instead of being killed the get raped if they stop walking and make the main character get raped but make the guy really hot and misunderstood and she ends up fixing him and together they take on the big bad government or something
>>24729838>All press is good press I suppose As someone who shilled a book here and got a lot of “press” in return, it’s definitely not. If you get the attention of certain people here they will make your life a living hell and spoil any project you try to do afterwards. There’s probably at least one person right now attempting to find your real address and phone number, planning to register a fake tripcode with your pen name to fabricate posts to prove to your boss that you’re a pedophile racist.
>>24730221Yea guess that is a risk. Did someone try and do that to you?
>>24730221I remember the day they found poor Zulu hiding in an underground bunker and pulled him into the streets and beat him to death. This is the risk we shills take. Pray for us…(Also I’ll check out your book, dude, looks cool)
>>24730278It has happened many times
>>24729667>>24729808Did you retards really think Anthony Fantano, a music reviwer, reviewed a niche book written by a /lit/ poster? Do you live in a little bubble? Do you really think anyone gives a shit about this site and the books that this board spawns?
>>24730532Reinspects made it to Rolling Stone
>>24730566I got the vibe he had some kind of backing. Good marketing though
>>24730290“They” finally got Zulu, huh? I remember there was always something getting at him. Did he ever figure out how the cartoons from his childhood may or may not have contained secret subliminal messages priming children to associate positive values with fictional absurdities?
>>24730532Then where did the #corndogzen meme come from? It was the summer of Corndog Zen. Were you locked away in some kind of sick, twisted sex dungeon this whole time?
>>24730579Yeah his last words as they quartered him were “strawberry shortcake predicted this”
>>24730603What lore am I missing
>>24730909Season 2 episode 5. I won't say more than that.
>>24730452/lit/ writers are like demons, you can gain power over them by learning their true names, and much like the demons of superstition and fiction they also have no actual influence in the real world.
Anyone actually read it?
>>24731336No one here reads, least of all books written by /lit/ anons. I don't understand how anyone would think of writing a book and shilling it here when the vast majority of anons have already shown they are not interested multiple times.
>>24732419Some will if you're not a fag about it. Posting a PDF is what separates it from plain advertising.
>>24732591Is that all? here:>>24732923
>>24732419https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h5WO62eZvOM&list=RDh5WO62eZvOM&start_radio=1&pp=ygURRG9udCBzaGlsbCBhIGJvb2ugBwE%3D
>>24732925>Is that all?In my mind, yeah. And I already read your book.
>>24732591I can post Corndog Zen when I get home.
>>24729667Retard.
>>24732925Shill it to me.
>>24728975me new vibe is desert vibes, mon. me be eating the sweet flesh of the joshua tree, mon. bombaclaat.
>>24733165Surrealist/speculative fiction about a father and son separately involved with an international transhumanist project, but framed mostly on the characters personal struggles. 20k words, already been through a few review cycles so should be no typos
>>24733145Patiently waiting.
>>24733653>should be no typosctrl-f "--"and for the love of god enable hyphenation so I don't have to see lines like in pic relIt also looks like you might have a mix of em and en dashes; look at the length of them on page 80. I thought it might be that they're stretched along with the spaces, but the two instances on page 80 make it clear that's not happening.
Who cares what that guy thinks.
>>24733653lol i thought that was ai slop until i zoomed in then i was like oh it's just modernist slop
>>24733655Sorry had to stay late. I’ll have it up in an hour or so
>>24733655https://litter.catbox.moe/6e421sx7c7b1gcrv.epubForgive some of the formatting issues. It got a kind of messed up in the conversion. Just as a heads up, I know it needs an edit. I've ran through it a number of times, but there's certainly stuff I missed.
>>24732925I'm on page 10 and I like the premise quite a bit but I almost feel like you could just start with the blackouts and then work in Abel's father's death and upload. It moves very quickly to the point where it was a little jarring. I know it's a novella but the pacing feels very fast. Could just be me. Still enjoying what I'm reading though.
>>24733884wallace if you are going to edit it again add a scene where mikey and kat meet in the walmart
>>24729651Just make a sock puppet account and tell everyone it's me.>>24729710>this book is about a loser, not a turbo-chadOh, you mean like dickens or hugo?>>24730532>how could something I have interest in ever become popular; this is my top secret clubhouse after all Board culture makes us all sound the same and after a long enough time makes us uninteresting both as individuals and as a collective.
>>24728975Fantano is the quintessential millennial, right down to the vasectomy
>>24734615I liked him when I was 16
>>24734381>Oh, you mean like DickensI’m not complaining that the book is about losers, I’m pointing out again to the author that it’s not likely that someone who regularly browses /lit/ and actually takes the time to read the books that are advertised here would be surprised by that, like off the top of my head, Egregore is about a woman watching her husband slowly die of cancer, Salvation on Peril Island is about an autistic man who creates a fictional simulation so he can be with some random woman he found on Facebook. So it’s kind of a giveaway that it’s the author trying to force his own book as a meme without really taking the time to understand /lit/.
>>24735132NTA but you’re way over analyzing this
>>24735223No, he's making a cogent point. If the Wallace did try to sell it here with a line like he described>this book is about a loser, not a turbo-chad like most of /lit/ would try to writethen yeah, it comes across as pretty uninformed about what a lot of people on /lit/ write or discuss. And it's happened before with the author ARX-HAN or whatever he goes by, who actually wrote a long blog entry detailing his failed advertising campaign where---without ever having browsed /lit/ or much of 4chan at all---he belived his novel about an incel would be popular here.I'd rank Wallace above that for at least sharing a PDF for free.
>>24735294>detailing his failed advertising campaigndo you have a link to that?
>>24735294>>24735132This is Wallace. Maybe I can give some helpful context. I never intended to market this book as a book about losers. I’ve been posting on 4chan since I was in high school and I’m in my 30s now. I can understand how it would look if I was trying to market this book thinking “oh yea heckin chud loser anime incel 4chan is gonna love my book about people like them”. I’d like to think I know this place a little better than that. I’ve talked to all types of people on here and many of them vastly smarter than me. Lots of morons too, but that’s exactly what you find here. It’s not monolithic thought. It makes sense that the success Arx Han had likely came from elsewhere and not from being a /lit/ favorite. This book is supposed to be about regular people who are overwhelmed. People with problems but too lovable to be losers. I posted it here because I know /lit/ will be honest. I know some will hate it and some will like it but I hope it didn’t come off like o was trying to pander to some nonexistent 4chan hive mind.
>>24735425Here it is:https://www.decentralizedfiction.com/p/how-to-spectacularly-fail-at-marketingand pic related is a quote from it.>>24735436The other guy's point was only cogent if he was telling the truth about you pandering, and yeah it doesn't sound like you are; I don't see you as the ARX-HAN type. That said, I think /lit/izens have a good reason to be suspicious when someone advertises a book here, so it's just par for the course.I have the EPUB and I'll try to give it a read soon.>This book is supposed to be about regular people who are overwhelmed. People with problems but too lovable to be losers.Going off this and a few other things you've said, did you ever get into the brief fad of burgerpunk when anons were trying that out here?
>>24735436>success>Arx Hanhuh?
>>24735480>spent $300 on 4chan ads>1,951 clicks>3 to 5 sales, which equated to about $10 to $15 dollars.Talk about a miserable conversion. But if you are linking directly to Amazon, why not use your Amazon affliate link? Wouldn't that bring in revenue elsewhere?Otherwise, you need to have a proper landing page if you are selling an ebook. You cannot rely on an Amazon listing page. That would be the takeaway from this.
>>24735480>burgerpunkThat’s a new one for me, but it sounds like something I would like lol. Thanks for downloading it man. I hope you like it. >>24735524Well relative success I guess. He’s certainly sold more books than I have. >>24735572See picrel for the ad campaign I ran here. I spent $75 bucks and sold a dozen copies
>>24735621You also posted about your book and dropped free copies. ARX made his book like a manga and never set foot here to discuss it. Like you said, posting about it here is for feedback, and there are people who appreciate that kind of honesty.>it sounds like something I would like lolIt was a thing here around 2020; stuff about corporate (or hyper-corporate) America and people living in the cracks. I'll drop the burgerpunk-ish stuff I have from a collection I put together. There's more to it than this, but it wasn't a very well-defined idea.(I licenced the photo in this one, which meant I had to mail a couple copies to the photographer's office. Kind of neat.)
>>24735644
>>24735646Pic rel is representative of a more dystopic-future, joke-y side of burgerpunk.
>>24735657I'd call this one the peak of the burgerpunk stuff in the collection. Poses a more serious question about the effects of corporate feudalism or whatever you'd like to call it; a force of conformity even if you slip between the cracks.Re: To be continued...There never was a follow-up that I ever saw; more issues of the magazine I pulled these from released, but I never saw more from this author.
>>24735663Another that fits.
>>24735644ARX's low conversion rate also suggests that people were not interested enough when they saw either the blurb or the sample. There's no amount of marketing that can save a bad book, and the book is bad. Just a bunch of whining and the suicide warnings front and back is totally off-putting. Not to mention the whacky pen name, which comes off as particularly cowardly.
>>24735621>the ad campaign I ran herewhich book was that?
>>24735723Adem Luz is the /lit/ success story. The reason he got so much good publicity from /lit/ in the beginning is because of the whole “/lit/ renaissance” meme from a couple years back. There were a lot of writers trying to make /lit/ into an indie publishing hub for a bit, they all jumped on Mixtape Hyperborea because it was an enjoyable read and proved that /lit/ could actually write something besides genre schlock and pseud self-pity manifestos. Plus he’s a trust fund kid so he has money and time to devote to slowburn marketing.
>>24735743Yeah, I've been surprised by that. Earlier this summer I read the PDF of Mixtape I'd had on my computer a long time, and I think it was right after that that the Rolling Stone article was published. Now the one he's mentioned in in Vulture. I really enjoyed Mixtape, but I'd probably end up siding with the Vulture guy in some ways even if he's firmly in the camp of "doesn't get it." I ought to read the Mars Review review of it and see whether it's a more measured take on it; in a way I think it's a shame that it's now tied to the idea of a movement, since I see it more as being more effective as something that frames the past. Eh, I'm getting ahead of myself with that, considering his intention/point is undeniable, even if I don't think it's well-formed.
>>24735743F. Gardner launched his career here also
>>24736033I was looking and it actually seems like he fixed a lot of the errors in call of the crocodile. Saw that rifle was no longer spelled as “riffle” on the first page in the preview recently and it made me a little sad
>>24736691I also weep every time my contemporaries improve. It is not enough that I would succeed... You know the rest.
>>24736717nta, but he isnt talking about the sadness of falling behind of the literary curve its the sadness of your daughter growing old enough to not find peakaboo fun anymore
>>24737070This is what I meant. No hate towards the OG
>>24735621>I spent $75 bucks and sold a dozen copiesDid you eke out a profit?
>>24737687Going off the KDP stats and what I see on the Canadian listing ($12.33 CAD), he's making a couple dollars per book ($2.31 CAD). So no.Also, Wallace, buddy, you gotta typeset that shit decently. This is hard as fuck to read, and there will inevitably be times when someone won't be able to tell that a new paragraph has started. You should justify the text, and indent new paragraphs. Also turn on hyphenation, which will split words with a hyphen at the end of a line, and if you're using Microsoft Word there's an option in there for it; helps keep justification from widening the spaces between words too much. Don't do double linebreaks between every paragraph (not the case in the preview, but it is in the EPUB); indents will indicate new paragraphs better. Consider that small things like this not only look and read better, but can also save you a couple pages by the end of the book (think of the sweet cents you're throwing away).https://practicaltypography.com/ is a good resource but really all you need to improve the book by a wide margin is justification, hyphenation, and what I said about line breaks and indents.I started reading the EPUB last night and that looks ok (decent, not great, but readable).
>>24737774>a couple dollars per book (But that's print though, right? Maybe he made money on the digital.
>>24737778I didn't find a digital listing, so I just assumed. It didn't come up on amazon.com at all, actually. And since Amazon takes a 30% cut on ebooks, he'd have to have been selling them for nearly $8.93 just to turn a profit after a dozen.
>>24737788>>24737774I don’t know how I missed this but thank you for the helpful feedback. I must have screwed something up in the conversion. I thought just the digital copy had messed up formatting and now I’m realizing it somehow made it to print. An earlier edition was formatted properly. Gonna have to spend some time fixing this.
>>24737774Actually if you give me an hour or so I'll upload a better version. Thanks again. Don't want people to suffer reading the book because of the formatting.
>>24737823This was the first time you opened your book? lol
>>24737823>it somehow made it to printFucking hell.
>>24737823I can't believe that all this time I've been shilling a book that doesn't even have paragraph indentations. If Lizard's Tale is also like this I'm going to KMS.
>>24737875>>24737883I got a lot going on, man. lol. Give me an hour and I'll have a free and actually readable copy for you fellas. I'm gonna yank the print version in the time being.
>>24737892
>>24735743>Mixtape HyperboreaWhy is the ebook so heavy at 21.5MB? Does it really include a soundtrack?
>>24737892>>24737883>>24737774>>24735644>IF YOU WANT TO READ CORNDOG ZEN PLEASE USE THIS LINKhttps://toffeeshare.com/c/KHSGcnlHTeI fixed basically everything. Sorry that edition was so sloppy. I don't know what I did. Gave a little shoutout to you guys in the introduction.
>>24738021>still not justifiedNigga what are you doing.
>>24738032dammit you're right. Gimme one minute.
>>24738032fixedhttps://toffeeshare.com/c/rAdxOToAQu
>>24738068Sweet.
>>24738049>>24738021You should ask Wing how to format a book. His looks good on print. From the centering to the page number
>>24738068Hmmm.
>>24738077>there's only so much bacon the world needs! so stop stuffing your face and give me a manatransport!What is wrong with this character? Why would she compare fat women to pigs? That's rude and unbecoming of a hero.
>>24738092Fuck. Well thanks for pointing it out. I must have fat fingered it or something while editing. There will probably be other little errors like that. I'll fix it.
>>24738068>pages are letter-sizedYou're hurting me, Wallace. Shrink that down to 6x9in or 5.5x8.5in and you'll be okay; it's easier to read if you don't have too many characters on a line, and 50-70 will probably look good/right for a novel. And if you want another tip, remove the extra line between paragraphs. But...>uses Google DocsThere's no good way for you to get automatic hyphenation, which is more important when the lines are shorter since there are fewer spaces between words for the renderer to modulate to get each line to fit. Something like Microsoft Word supports it, and there are better pieces of software for rendering text.For examples of hyphenation or the lack of it:Look at the line that starts with "Hey!" here >>24738077, and see how "hammered" is split at the end.In the image here >>24733699 you see what happens if there are too few letters on a line and the spacing gets really wide; words like "Something" and "completely" would be split to fix this.Pic related shows an example too.
>>24738107This is very helpful. Thank you.
>>24738068if that link doesn't workhttps://litter.catbox.moe/0p9n8swsn00xw0zr.pdf
>>24738077>WingWing was always the greatest of 4chan authors. R.I.P.
>>24738107>Something like Microsoft Word supports it,why would that matter with an e-pub? doesn't it have to do its own formatting?
>>24738154did you change anything other than typos and styling?
>>24738475Not really. Fixed a few poorly worded sentences but other than that just typos and formatting.
Books are a product made from trees. They are sold like vegetables, automobiles, mobile apps, or anything else. Books must be marketed. That is where the publisher comes in, they have to determine if your story is worth printing and selling, risking profit or loss.If you self-publish, you still need to market your books. I saw your ad, corndog man, pretty cool stuff. Very Americana. Have you tried running more ads and in more places? Have you talked to book stores, independents and big chains, to get your books on their shelves? Same as a farmer who gets his produce on the shelves of grocery stores or farmers markets.All I'm saying is no one is going to hear about your book, which is a product, if you don't market it. You can even slap stickers and do unconventional things like guerrilla marketing. Like this post in all likelihood.Big problem for a lot of independent artists. Marketing. It what I used to do for Wall Street before I got canned for opposing zionist genocide. It played out just like Melville's Bartleby. Up and down and over and out, like ol blue eyes Sinatra. I've loved, laughed and cried, won and lost, slept in shelters and big hotels, made big deals and shoveled big loads of coal. Ghetto alleys, country roads, suburban parking lots. I am America, pal, and I appreciate your style, your grattitude, for this wild land and its stories.Hawking your book doesn't make you a sellout, it makes you practical. You have to be realistic about things. Practical. Proofreading, editing, marketing. Like a professional. A book is a thing made of trees and it ain't made for free.I'll read your story, bud. If I can get back on my feet and scrounge some dollar bills together I'll buy a copy. I'd also like to read one a little longer and without the drugs, something clean and heartfelt, because it seems like a real quest for the great American novel.
>>24738510Thanks for the kind words. I haven’t really tried to market it because I want to make sure at least some people like it. I also don’t think it would do well with a general readership. It’s definitely an acquired taste I think. People who like Vonnegut, Heller and Bukowski will enjoy it. People looking for a John Williams novel aren’t gonna like it. I’ve had mixed reviews here so I’m not sure what to make of it. I’ve been thinking of printing stickers. I’ve started leaving copies of my poetry chapbooks in coffee shops and hotel lobbies. Sorry to hear about the job situation. Can’t put a price on principles though, so kudos. I’m glad you appreciated the America themes. That’s what I was leaning into. This land has lots of problems but I love the people here.
