Buy Books, Not Food!
Food bloggers often sing the praises of the independent grocery, the farmer’s stall, the microbrand that outshines the big boys in taste, texture, and all things crucial to the palate of the discriminating gourmand.
Today, I’m going to ignore that trend completely and blog about the wonders of Wonder Bread.
Kidding.
In truth, I’m going to ignore food completely — which is easy to do at the moment, considering we’ve now got one (count it, one!) burner working on the stovetop — and blog about the wonders of small press publishing.
Or, to be more specific, I’m going to sing the praises of one particular small press publisher that’s near and dear to my heart.
And now… the sales pitch!
Love genre fiction but tired of the same old same old? Wasn’t it just last week that you threw that doorstop fantasy across the room because it contained just too damn many elves?
You want something different. Something with literary sensibilities, but weird. Yes, you crave weird. Trouble is, all the big stores, all the supermarkets, all they’ve got are those same authors over and over and over again, and no, Michael Crichton doesn’t write good science fiction (or good fact for that matter), and no, you are done with that silly Brown fellow because if you want secret histories of the world, you want them to contain copper flying machines, and pretzels of causality, and crafty pugs dressed as Sir Philip Sidney, and sentient, tool wielding apes who could kick Charlton Heston’s ass with both hands tied behind their hairy backs.
Yes, what you want are books from Wheatland Press!
Why the pitch? Why now?
Because — like many of the finest microbrands in the world — Wheatland Press is deserving of wider recognition.
And, because Wheatland’s got a holiday special:
Buy any Wheatland Press title (from the Wheatland Press website) by midnight July 4, 2006 (Pacific Time) and receive any one volume of the acclaimed cross-genre anthology series Polyphony (1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5) absolutely free.
All you have to do is place your order via the Paypal link on the website and in the space marked “Comment,” specify which volume of Polyphony you’d like to have.
Now, I haven’t read every single story in every single volume just yet so I won’t give out any definitive recommendations, but I can tell you this: if you snag Polyphony 5, you’ll snag a story by a certain author who has been known to haunt these parts and write silly fictions about poached eggs and poultry puns.
Just sayin.’
July 4th, 2006 at 9:19 am
Miz D,
That should brighten up your fowl mood.
July 4th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Now Kevin, it’s always good to have something to crow about, but do you think it’s wise to egg me on like this?
(Doomed, I tell ya, I’m doomed. Okay, commenters who wish to discuss wonderful things about Wheatland or small presses in general, are exempt from poultry puns. It would be egregious of me to suggest otherwise.)
July 4th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Miz D, seems like you’ve been “sitting on a golden egg” and are just now letting the cat out of the bag! Congrats on being published! I’m always up for supporting the little man, or woman, as the case may be - thanks for letting me know about Wheatland!
July 4th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Hey, how’d cats get in there?
In truth, Polyphony 5’s been out since last fall. I’m just now getting around to merging my foodbloggy self with my writer self, and I thought this nifty intro to Wheatland (and the 2-fer deal) was a good place to start.
Oh, wait. I left out the poultry puns! Erm… feel free to cluck disparagingly in my direction for chickening out and ducking the whole non food blog career issue for so long.
Gah. That was awful. I need to go watch me some fireworks.
July 5th, 2006 at 9:16 am
Miz D,
Reading that last comment I figured you were already shell shocked.
July 5th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
“Cluck, cluck…” (*wink, wink*)