HIFI Press Books Gives Their Entire Catalog Away In COVID-19 Response: “Spread Love, Not Germs”
Greetings, fellow humans. I’m Tom Sadira, founder of HIFI Press, a small indie publisher of the finest (and most foolish) fiction this side of the galaxy. I have an important announcement to make, but first, let’s take a quick peek at how things are going on Spaceship Earth.
In case you haven’t heard (yeah, right), there’s a friggin’ viral pandemic sweeping the globe. Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the same sinister factoids everyone keeps repeating. I’m sure you have the score by now:
COVID-19 IS HOMO SAPIENS’ #1 ENEMY (if we don’t count homo sapiens 👋 ).
PANDEMICS SUCK. Everyone’s afraid. Many are sick. Some will die. What the virus spares, our plummeting economy will not. It’s going to get worse before it gets even worse…and then, eventually, it will get better.
Besides scrubbing your hands to the bone and emptying every toilet paper aisle across the country, what can a conscientious human do? Here’s the strangely contradictory part: as a social animal that relies on others for our survival, the smartest action we can take is to isolate ourselves from others. Starting last month, if possible. Yikes.
With other disasters, like fires or floods, at least we can get out and actively help one another. Row the damn rescue boat. Fight the damn fire. Hold someone’s hand and bring them comfort. But for a global pandemic like COVID-19, the best thing we can do is to keep our filthy, germ-ridden paws to ourselves.
Isolation — combined with rising paranoia and an endless parade of sensational headlines — can be as dangerous to our health as the virus itself. Health is as much mental as it is physical. When we let our minds and spirits turn to shit, our bodies follow suit.
To balance out the instinctual “OMG-don’t-freak-out” urge, I’ve been trying to fortify myself with healthful choices:
✅ Eat lots of fresh veg 🥕
✅ Exercise regularly 🏃
✅ Get plenty of sleep 💤
✅ Smoke a bit of the sticky-icky 💨
✅ Read 📖
Read? Really?
Damn straight. Books, and lots of them. Not piddly little articles on the internet (I’m lookin’ at you, dear reader). Also, non-fiction doesn’t count. Non-fiction is for people who want to stuff their heads at the expense of starving their hearts. When we’re scared or suffering, stories can lighten the load, while facts just give us more to carry.
What I’m talking about is scanning lines of text until you forget yourself and embody a character other than your own. Flipping pages till you’re experiencing a different life. Escaping into another world.
For those of us who love reading, the comfort and healing that comes from a good story are as powerful as — and sometimes more powerful than — the comfort and healing offered by the “real world”.
FINALLY, IT’S BIG ANNOUNCEMENT TIME
Some of you might not know that my grandfather converted to Buddhism just before he died, which technically makes me a quarter Buddhist. There’s an old Buddhist teaching that goes something like this:
“You can still care for those you cannot cure, and in doing so, you often find true healing.”
Personally, my favorite medicine (besides the sticky-icky) is something more potent than any drug, more contagious than any disease, and is something humanity has healed itself with for millennia: LAUGHTER.
“Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing laughter, hurried away.”
~ Benjamin ‘BRING ON THE LIGHTNING!’ Franklin
I sell laughs. You give me a couple bucks in exchange for a few hundred words that, I hope, conjure up some gasping guffaws or cheerful chuckles. (Or, if you’re an uptight reader, maybe just the occasional giggle when you’re sure no one’s looking). Either way, you buy the ticket and I take you for a ride.
In the last few weeks, companies and governments have been making tough choices to combat COVID-19. Billions and BILLIONS of dollars are being sacrificed for the greater good. The self-sacrifice is pretty damn beautiful. I’ve been asking myself how I, a lowly indie publisher, might also support humanity in this noblest of battles. Here’s what I came up with.
From now until June 20th, I’m giving away every single ebook and audiobook that HIFI Press has published.
No email sign up. No registration forms. No BS.
Just visit www.hifipressbooks.com/kick-corona-in-the-balls, click a download link, and enjoy the free laughs. 💚
- Q: “But, but, but, Tom, if you give all your books away, you won’t make any money! Will you be able to pay your mortgage?”
A: Probably. (If not, I got my eye on a cozy spot under the bridge.) - Q: “Will your kids starve?”
A: Hell no. I’ve trained them from an early age to hunt stray cats and pigeons. We’re good. - Q: “What will you wipe your butt with?”
A: My family ascended from barbarism years ago by switching to a bidet. We can stretch a roll of teepee till Halloween if we need to.
If you want to help me out, here are some simple ways:
- Spread this article around like the plague. (eeek, too soon?)
- Click the Donate button on https://www.hifipressbooks.com/go-to-hell-corona
Our species is in peril — as much from our panic as from the COVID-19. We’ll get through this bottleneck, as we have every other evolutionary challenge our species has faced. Laughter might make the journey a little less awful.
So, before you dig into The Springtime of Social Distance™, pop over to www.hifipressbooks.com/f-corona to snatch some free copies of my ebooks and audiobooks.
I’ll end with one of the most popular quotes from science fiction literature:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will chill the eff out, download Tom Sadira’s free books, and laugh until the storm passes.”~ Frank Herbert’s Dune (slightly modified by yours truly)
