Tips For Writers
Everybody and their grandmother has tips for writers, not the kind of tips where they give you money but the kinds of tips where they tell you what to do so you can make your own money. Which is even better — you can give a man a fish and it’ll stink up his kitchen, but if you tell some bull about how you caught the biggest fish this old town has ever seen it will stink up his ears. So there’s a lot of Grandmas out there talking about catching that big swordfish somewhere off the Florida Keys last summer.
Anyway, people like getting these tips, I don’t know why, but give the people what they want is my motto unless they want me dead in which case we need to have a serious conversation about what is your problem, and who has authorized this hit?!?
Now as far as why I should be making these tips, that’s a different kettle of fish, I might not be your grandma, hell I might not be anybody’s grandma (I don’t really keep track), but I did win the Elvis Popely Great Ass content 3 years running. That said, stop tripping and start tipping!
Tip 1: Try to find somewhere nice to write, it will make the writing go smoother and quicker. I recommend a nice beach on Belize, you have no idea how much writing on a nice beach on Belize can just make all your writing troubles go away!
Tip 2: As soon as you have a decent first page for your story — send that off!, Send off each succeeding page. This method is likely to have the editor on the edge of their seat with excitement, they can hardly wait to get the next page of your prose and sooner or later they will just flat out offer to publish you so as to stop the suspense.
Tip 3: Also send the editor pictures of you on the nice beach in Belize, look really happy, if you look miserable they won’t mind rejecting you because you’re already down, but it takes a really big jerk to bring somebody down who is having a great day on the beach!
Tip 3a: If an editor is so mean as to ruin your great day on the beach send the submission again, with the note please reconsider, and a picture of you looking depressed and possibly maniacal. Have a big knife!
Tip 4: Maintain a site with attractive nude pictures of a porn star on it, claim to be that porn star on the site, list this as your personal site so that when the editor out of natural curiosity goes to check out what you’re like they will find you are really sexy. If there’s one thing that will get you published it is being sexy.
Tip 5: Tell people you meet in the street that you are a genius and you have sent off your book to the publishing house to get published. Due to the scientific fact of there being six degrees of separation between any person you meet on the street and the editor of the publishing house you have sent off your manuscript to this increases the chances of one of these random people calling up the editor and saying “hey, I’m a friend of Josh, and IG Agent #6 is a genius so you should publish him, ok?”
Tip 6: Gain a degree of notoriety by doing something which will get you in the news, make sure that you do something related to the field in which you’re writing. For example, if the field is Science Fiction, steal the space shuttle.
Tip 7: Kill an editor at another publishing house than the one you’re sending your manuscript to. Then point out to the editor of your target publishing house the possible negative consequences of not publishing your manuscript. Note that you cannot just threaten to kill them, that never works, no one will take you seriously, and the worst thing for a prospective author is not to be taken seriously.
Tip 8: And I cannot stress this enough, do not kill the editor you are submitting your manuscripts too! Getting published is all about building a relationship of Trust. Nothing destroys trust quicker and more completely than Death.
Tip 9: Claim to be the royalty of a made-up European country. Intellectuals love that kinda crazy shit. Tell them if they publish your work you want to be paid in your national currency, the exchange rate of which is 3 dollars to the Drublosinhk. This will improve your payment rate.
Tip 10: write your manuscript in your made up country’s language, offer to send them a translation for a flat fee of fifty dollars. This will cause them to respect you because you have mad language skillz.
Tip 12: When making up tips for people to follow, don’t be a boring old fuddy-duddy and number your tips in sequential order, instead throw in an out of sequence number every now and then to demonstrate your creativity. Do the same thing with the numbering of chapters in your manuscript.
Tip Anaximander: Sometimes you don’t even need to use numbers!!!!
Tip 13: Show up at the publishing house drunk, waving your manuscript, and threatening to burn it as a protest against all bourgeois sentimentality. They will beg to publish you.
Tip 14: be wearing a mask made to look like the good looking porn star on your site when you do number 13.
Tip 15: Tell them that you are them and you are publishing their manuscript! They will get so confused that they will publish your manuscript in retaliation.
Anyway these are my tips to help you get published. I swear that if you follow all these tips you will have the kind of success I’ve had in my life, and really who could wish for anything more?
You know I’m sort of wondering about this lie thing, like what if one tells lies that are obviously untrue will that be offensive.for example if i say i won the Elvis Popely Great Ass award 3 years running will that get my manuscript rejected? Anyway, always stick to the truth if it works is my motto, and if you don’t want to work lie like you mean it.
