Bestselling: How to write a book that flies off shelves, earns millions, and can be summed up in a 500 word title

One of the most secretive and least understood jobs in book publishing is the titleist. You would think that a book’s author comes up with its title, but you would not be correct. Book titles are written by titleists, and experienced titleists can earn more than doctors, although not more than doctors who moonlight writing book titles.

To understand their special brand of magic, compare how skilled titleists have improved on the original efforts of unimaginative authors:

ORIGINAL TITLE	BEST-SELLING TITLE
Moby Dick	Moby Dick: How the hubris of Capt. Ahab challenged God, defied himself, and endangered a species
On the Road	On the Road: One man’s journey through the margins of America while struggling against substance abuse a shot of whiskey at a time
A Million Little Pieces	A Million Little Pieces: The fictional story of a real liar
The Bible	The Bible: Why Abraham kept God’s covenant, invented circumcision, bought up all the land in Canaan, and begat Isaac, who begat Jacob, who begat Judah, who begat Pharez, who begat Hezron, who begat Ram, who begat Amminadab, who begat Nahshon, who begat Salmon, who begat Boaz, who begat Obed, who begat Jesse, who begat David, who begat Solomon, who begat Rehoboam, who begat Abijah, who begat Asa, who begat Jehoshaphat, who begat Joram, who begat Uzziah, who begat Jotham, who begat Ahaz, who begat Hezekiah, who begat Manasseh, who begat Amon, who begat Josiah, who begat Jeconiah, who begat Shealtiel, who begat Zerubbabel, who begat Abiud, who begat Eliakim, who begat Azor, who begat Sadok, who begat Achim, who begat Eliud, who begat Eleazar, who begat Matthan, who begat Jacob, who begat Joseph, who begat Jesus, and eventually, Paris Hilton

FOX Reality Presents: Are you dumber than an idiot?

From the network that brought you “Two Contestants, One Cup” and “I’d Kill Myself for a Million Dollars” comes a match of wits against the witless, a test of wills against the unwilling, a mental challenge against the mentally challenged—Are You Dumber Than An Idiot?

In this groundbreaking reality competition, players have the chance to take home six-digit winnings going question for question against opponents with double-digit IQ’s. With mind-numbing inquiries from “How many fingers am I holding up?” to “What color is this?”, nothing is off the table in the ultimate confrontation of cerebral cortexes.

When you’ve got everything to win and they have nothing to lose, only the struggle between synapses will separate the merely stupid from those with serious birth defects such as hydrocephalus, phenylkketonuria, cretinism, and many more cranial anomalies. Are YOU dumber than an idiot? Only on FOX Reality, Sundays at 9PM.

Asian cinema seems so sophisticated…

…until you read what they’re really saying.

Bullet Point Film Review: There Will Be Blood

In 1898, Danny Lewis falls into a deep hole after being frightened by the THX sound. He finds a bastard in a basket. He travels around the old West trying to sell towns on his plan to build a monorail. He meets the suicidal kid from Little Miss Sunshine who tells him about a great place to hunt quail. He buys up all the quail land and plunders it for extra-virgin olive oil, earning $5,000 per week, or in today’s currency, €25,000 euros. His basket bastard goes deaf from annoying repetition of the THX sound. He abandons his child. He abandons his child. HE ABANDONS HIS CHILD! He goes bowling and drinks a milkshake. There is blood.

Bullet Point Film Review: Gone Baby Gone

Casey Affleck and the woman who lives with him are watching Mystic River on the TV when there is a knock at the door. In Boston, movie extras have serious weight problems. Rollie Fingers tells Casey that he should come see Ed Harris’ goatee. Casey meets the Oscar nominee for Shortest Amount of Screen Time for an Oscar Nominee. The woman who lives with Casey says she doesn’t want to take the case and see a child dead. Casey drives his laadge caah to the cawps headkaawtahs where he and Morgan Freeman share ah wickaahd bolla chowda. They take the case and the woman who lives with Casey sees a child dead. Time passes until the next plot point. Casey visits Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, who is hiding out in Boston following the bomb scare. Casey shoots Carl’s wife and his bondage friend. Casey suffers a crisis of conscience and turns to Ed Harris. Casey shoots Ed Harris. Morgan Freeman completes the last item on his bucket list: stealing a white kid.

When is HGH not really HGH?

Roger Clemens is telling the truth. He never told friend and teammate Andy Pettitte that he had taken human growth hormone. That Andy is always mishearing things, like the time he thought the Pledge of Allegiance says “and to the republic of witches’ hands.”

What Clemens actually said was that he’d been taking Hunan growth hormone—an ancient herbal remedy for enhancing performance, not on the pitcher’s mound, but rather, ahem, with getting to home base. Which is why he is so reluctant to talk about it. It’s a guy thing.

As for his wife taking it, too, maybe they were just following the directions on the bottle. It is not our place to judge. We cannot read Chinese.

Hot new trailer for the year’s biggest film!

Hooray! Savvy studio executives who have stockpiled scripts can now employ malnourished writers to cram them all together, firebombing strike-weary audiences with a barrage of star power unmatched outside of Alpha Piscis Austrini.

What do writers want? Justic! When do they want it? Nowe!

You wouldn’t normally associate a labor strike with writers. Striking usually means not working, which is what most writers do anyway. But many people would be surprised at the conditions writers are often forced to labor under. And it isn’t a new problem.

During the “Golden Age” of TV, many writers came home at night with a hacking cough and blackened hands. On the upside, their forearms were massive.

By the 1980’s, it was not uncommon for hit television shows to simply disappear “without a trace,” which coincidentally, is now the title of a hit television show.

Today there are so many aspiring scribes in Hollywood that producers enjoy the luxury of hiring writers to produce only one joke each.

Hopefully the strike will soon end, and one day you will no longer have to be witness to images like these, because I’ll be too busy to make them.

A model feast

Sometimes even Senators get sad inside

It is fashionable right now to publish stories about the looming recession. It is also fashionable to describe the recession as looming. Is it that dark blob there, outside the window, up in the sky? Sorry, false alarm—it’s just a tornado.

Of course, you probably already know what to do when recession strikes: preserve your remaining cash inside vacuum-sealed pouches, hoard chickens, collect the names of the elderly and meaty, and lock your sister-in-law in an airtight bunker, just because you can.

But in case you missed all this, Newsweek’s “A Recession Handbook” shares some advice sure to put your government-handout-spending mind at ease:

And don’t feel guilty about disappointing our nation’s leaders if you use the stimulus package to put your financial house in order.

Whew. Still, spending your free money on overdue bills isn’t something to brag about. Have you ever seen a disappointed Congressperson? The way the corners of their mouth curl down just a little more than usual? Their eyes well up like fresh bee stings. They sink into a paralyzing depression and lose their normally vibrant interest in pork-barrel spending, hardly even able to muster a simple “quid pro quo” for a lobbyist’s huge campaign donation. Just the sight of it is enough to crush the spirit of a child.

Let’s not forget the story of Margaret Roberts of Mankato, Minnesota. Naive Mrs. Roberts put some of her 1985 tax savings into a long-term CD, depriving the nation’s economy of her fertile cash. That selfish woman still suffers flashbacks and nightsweats from the memory of President Reagan’s quivering voice on the phone. She couldn’t see if he was actually crying on that terrible day, but she knew that he was. You can just tell. The phone shakes around a little bit. Plus, the sniffling.

← Previous Page — Next Page →

• Subscribe

• Meh

  Funny is a very subjective thing. If I say, "Does this milk smell funny to you?" you might say no, proceed to drink it, and die of poisoning by botulism. For example.

• Buy my book!

  Order my new book and you will experience a sensation that starts out warm and ends with a strange rash. This feeling is called shame.

• Fresh

  • Book release! Live Nude Cats: Tabbyloid Tails from the Furry Underbelly of Adult Feline Entertainment
  • Steamy hot new video for Live Nude Cats
  • Craigslist adds new “Rapes & Murders” section
  • Just in time for Passover–new Bacon & Egg Matzos
  • Laid off? Out of work? Join Al-Qaeda!
  • New Live Nude Cats
  • Coke’s Illustrated Equipment Review: Reconsidering the Crack Pipe
  • Chinese Food Network Presents 3 Minute Meals
  • America’s first “green prison”
  • Microsoft Relationship Support
  • Drug addicts rejoice — for the Coke of the Month Club
  • The Antiques of Truth
  • Alter ego via CNN…
  • MASTERING UPPERCASE LETTERS
  • Blogging as Osama
  • Resignations of lesser renown
  • Cooks Illustrated Recipe: Boiled Water
  • My Year of Cannibalism
  • Le Art Film: A French Guy Looking Out The Window On A Train
  • The future netopia is a disruptive steampunk hive hacking the analog hegemony
  • Bestselling: How to write a book that flies off shelves, earns millions, and can be summed up in a 500 word title
  • FOX Reality Presents: Are you dumber than an idiot?
  • Asian cinema seems so sophisticated…
  • Bullet Point Film Review: There Will Be Blood
  • Bullet Point Film Review: Gone Baby Gone
  • When is HGH not really HGH?
  • Hot new trailer for the year’s biggest film!
  • What do writers want? Justic! When do they want it? Nowe!
  • A model feast
  • Sometimes even Senators get sad inside

• read it

  • Apollonia This Week
  • Dick Cheney Shot Me Too
  • Live Nude Cats
  • Personal Portfolio
  • WalmartDotGov

• watch it

  • “Coming Soon”: The trailer
  • Films for the Deaf: Episode 1
  • Lost Letturz: Britney & K-Fed’s Secret Love Notes
  • Lost Letturz: Bush makes peace with Iran
  • Lost Letturz: Osama Bin Laden’s early threats
  • The Four Seasons Trilogy 1: Endless Winter
  • The Four Seasons Trilogy 2: Sixty Degrees of Separation
  • The Four Seasons Trilogy 3: The F Word
  • The Passion of the Crust

Copyright © 2008 Aaron Weiss
Theme: Dropshadow (modified)