Publishing Punk Rock

Thanks to my friends at Blurb, I'm proud to announce the DIY publication of The Truman Show: Why You Do This? The book of the phenomenon that is Truman the pug, aka the dorkiest dog in the universe. It's chock full o' photos of and text about the pug so irresistible that FOX Broadcasting couldn't help but steal his copyright protected image. Now you (and FOX Legal) can have your very own piece of Truman without violating U.S. law! SHAZAM!

But wait, there's more! And it involves me giving you free shit! YEAH!

Of course anyone can make a book at Blurb, but how would a free bookmaking code valued at $29.95 -- approx the cost of two books, depending on options selected -- grab ya? With one of these codes you can publish and buy your own book(s), or buy someone else's coughcough. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention: I'M GIVING AWAY 10 OF THESE BABIES.

Yesss mah preshus, I'll be bestowing ten codes next Monday, April 20th upon the commenters with the ten best ideas for what book(s) they'll publish with said code. And listen, if you have more than one great idea for a book, and more than one of those ideas is among the ten best? You'll get more than one code. MAY THE BEST BOOKS WIN.

Be as free-form as you'd like with your book description, bonus points for 1) an awesome title, and/or 2) making me laugh (really, there's ALWAYS bonus points for making me laugh; there's a whole portion of my brain wholly devoted to tallying Made Me Laugh Bonus Points for every human being I've ever encountered. Incidentally, this is the only part of my brain capable of doing any kind of math).

Read more about Blurb yonder, and get those idears perkolatin'!

Clear? Clearish? Alrighty then. AUTHORS, START YOUR ENGINES!

Comments

[moosh in indy.]

I'll DM you my idea. Make sure you get it. Because it's good.

[JenB]

I honestly think I will be a huge gaybo and make a Family Book or maybe just a Mark and I book because we have no printed photos, or very few. I just need to figure out how to vary my captions other than just writing "Jen says suck it", "Mark says suck it", "Charlotte should SUCK IT here", etc.

[daysgoby]

I would love to do a blog book, but it'd have to be titled something like 'Mom, it's a blog. Y'know, a BLOG.'

And on the first page I'd have to talk about the fact that my doctor is sure I'm a logger because he won't take the damned stethoscope out of his ears to listen when I tell him what I've been doing, and then there would have to be a four-paragraph breakdown for my grandmother about how yes, blogging IS like an on-line diary and NO, THAT DOESN'T MEAN I told everyone Uncle Louie used to wear Aunt Katherine's nightgowns.

(well, until NOW.)

[perksofbeingme]

For the blurb book give away, I want to make one of Maddie to give to Heather and Mike. With excerpts from posts written about her and pictures of her. That way they can have it all in one book. I want to mail it to them signed, from those that love you most.

Another book I want to make for me- is titled, "damn, I'm going to hell for this." and will be all about the "bad" and "Wrong" things that are sending me to hell (btw, Happy Zombie Jesus day).

[Sean Carton]

Hey Tracey!

Claire and I have been working on a book proposal called "Making Together," a tome about how to improve your relationship by making stuff together (duh! :) ) Anyway, I'd love a code!

[Parent Club]

Coolio giveaway! I would blurb a book on kids' birthday parties because:

1. Parents spend way to much time thinking about planning their kids birthday parties when they could be doing other things like saving the world, eating chocolate, doing the laundry.
2. Kids birthday parties are so over-the-top these days -- someone has to stop the maddness.
3. Some things in life should just be easier for parents - and birthday parites are in the top 5.

Title?: Yes, you'll get a loot bag.

[daisybones]

This is really interesting synchronicity (or coincidence depending on where you fall on a scale of how Jungian you are) because I've just now made a few public vows to start a book I want to make. It's a visual art/text book (think Nick Bantok meets hand-drawn zine) about my identity experience as a woman with a limb deformity. It's part creative non-fiction, part hallucinogenic daydream.

The title is Diary of Elephant Girl. It's a journal-like account of my forming an identity of I Am A Nonconformist Freak Goddess and how awesome that was except that I totally buried my vulnerable, alienated emotions.

Some things I'll touch on include:

-references to elephants: Ganesha the Hindu god who is patron of people with birth defects, watching The Elephant Man and having a massive breakdown, and the lethally cute fact that as a baby I called my arm my baby elephant.
-the insane mind-crushing contradiction of being pregnant and praying for ten fingers so hard my brain nearly collapsed while pondering how self-loathing it was to be terrified my baby would look like me.

*Note: OMG am I terrified to write this in public. For the record, intarwebizens, Diary of Elephant Girl is mineminemine and if you steal my precious brain explosion I will go apeshit lunatic on you with my claw hand. KTHX.*

[Amy]

My husband and I have been talking about making a book for our daughter about Chicken People and how their culture evolved, and then died out, with the invention of the knives that at first seemed like a boon for their frequent cheese consumption, but turned out to... Well, you'd have to read the book.

Or I'd just make an album of my daughter's incredible cuteness because isn't that what parents are supposed to do?

[Tami Wyatt]

Years ago I journaled my two bouts with breast cancer. When I wrote it I was still married to my husband and I portrayed him in the best light possible. Now that many years have passed I would like to turn my journal in to a book but this time I would be more truthful about everything, including the drunken antics of my former husband. I've already named my book, "The Boobs In My Life" and if you would like to read it in it's most raw, original form then you can do so here: http://icantbelieveanyonewouldwanttoreadthis.blogspot.com/2008/10/get-your-pulitzer-applications-shined.html

[Naomi]

My dog-obsessed daughter would probably rather have The Truman Show but I would like to make a coffee table book of her dad's artwork:

http://bobburdetteart.com/home.html

[schmutzie]

Have I got book ideas.

- "Outside Bras" - a photo book of people, both men and women, doing very normal things, only with big ass mama bras on the outside of their clothes.

- A photo book of my cats and others at their best, including a Lula-in-heat photo montage. Hot neutered male action!

- An actual, honest-to-goodness book of serious photographs, because I love the craft.

- A compilation book of both my photography and poetry.

- There's more. I have a kid's book in mind done with photographed, posed dolls of my own making.

[lisa]

We want to do a fairy tale mash-up book. Actually, it wouldn't just be a fairy tale mash up it would be a mythology/fairy tale mash up. You know, the Seven Dwarves go with Odysseus to Troy where they rescue Snow White.

That kind of the thing.

[rockle]

my book would be called "the nuts and the comatose: a family soap opera" and it would take pictures my crazy relatives doing what we all do and i would make up totally libelous stories about them.

like how "allegedly" my great-grandmother was the model for the queen of hearts in the hoyle pinochle deck. something like that. i have a very active imagination and i could make some really good shit up.

[sandy]

real food by real people- pix and easy recipes that real people can make and understand, afford and like

or could do
the joys of sex over the years
from dating to just before death (heck I wanna die having an orgasm so there you go)

[cordy74]

I would probably write a book about my dad called (wait for the very original title): The Dad Chronicles. I have blogged about a couple of his exploits at http://cordy74.wordpress.com. The man has been nothing if not interesting. He has also been shot, burned, impaled, bludgeoned, crushed, lacerated...the list goes ever onward.

[isometricprinciplesofbusiness.wordpress.com]

I would love the opportunity to release my book about the Isometric Principles of Business. I have already outline some of the Principles at http://IsometricPrinciplesofBusiness.wordpress.com. These Principles have been gleaned from nearly ten years working for the same company, all the while watching that company fight the only enemy it truly knew: itself!!! Or use your imagination to fill in the blanks with something more dramatic.....

[tara]

Okay, this one is a little long, but ...

How to say "Where's the plunger?" in Tagalog:
Useful phrases for meeting the in-laws for the first time while pregnant

Or ...
Somebody gave Ken real boy parts (and it wasn't Barbie)

Or ...
What She Really Wants:
The true confessions of a pregnant newlywed

Or ...
the (im)possible task

[gabrielle]

Ooh, I would publish a book of photos of my home county, which is unbelievably rural and poor, but still beautiful, and I would call it Beautiful Bertie County (catchy title, huh?) and it would have pictures like this:

http://seethestars.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/foggy-morning/

in it (from my 'rural life' blawg).

Or, I would publish a book of stupid drunk/stoned/otherwise intoxicated photos of my friends and I from college (and afterwards), and call it "Do As I Say, Not As I Did," and it would have pictures like this:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2259/1962416805_0d96dbd422.jpg

(from my Flickr), in the hopes that our children will be so embarrassed and horrified they will decide not to do quite that many drugs in their young adulthood.

Thanks for the excellent contest! Blurb looks pretty cool.

[Jenn Short]

I'd write a bit of a memoir and title it "Things my mother would lay a guilt trip on me if she knew I did ~or~ fishing for condoms in Berlin".

[Tari Lawson]

About 9 years ago I wrote a book for my oldest son. He was so into dinosaurs that I decided to write a story about him and a Stegasaurus. I read it to his first grade class and they loved it. Currently it is on a couple printed pages in a folder. I would love to be able to put it into real book form for him.