The Atlanta Nights Sting book

[Hobbit]

This was new to me, but I thought others might be amused by it.

In 2004 there was a book written with the intent of being as bad as possible.

Called Atlanta Nights and published by the pseudonym 'Travis Tea', it was actually written by a group of SF and Fantasy writers and sold to PublishAmerica, though the contract was later withdrawn.

Authors included Robin Hobb and Allen Steele, amongst others.

More details HERE.

From Wikipedia:

The primary purpose of the exercise was to test PublishAmerica's claims to be a "traditional publisher" which would only accept high-quality manuscripts. Critics have long claimed that PublishAmerica is actually a vanity press which pays no special attention to the sales potential of the books they publish since most of their revenue comes from the authors rather than book buyers. PublishAmerica had previously made some highly derogatory public remarks about science fiction and fantasy writers, because many of their critics came from those communities; those derogatory remarks influenced the decision to make such a public test of PublishAmerica's claims

Here's a copy of the text, available for download: LINK.

And here's a list of some of the deliberate errors put in the text:

The distinctive flaws of Atlanta Nights include nonidentical chapters written by two different authors from the same segment of outline (13 and 15), a missing chapter (21), two chapters that are word-for-word identical to each other (4 and 17), two different chapters with the same chapter number (12 and 12), and a chapter "written" by a computer program that generated random text based on patterns found in the previous chapters (34). Characters change gender and race; they die and reappear without explanation. Spelling and grammar are nonstandard and the formatting is inconsistent. The initials of characters who were named in the book spelled out the phrase "PublishAmerica is a vanity press."

Under (James D.) Macdonald's direction, the finale revealed that all the previous events of the plot had been a dream, although the book continues for several more chapters.

I have had a read: it is pretty awful stuff.

The 'author' even had his own website: LINK.

But it does highlight the risks and perils of publishing, or alternatively what could happen without a good editor behind you, and so I thought others might be interested.

Hope you find it interesting. I found it by accident this evening.

I was quite amused that authors had taken the effort, frankly. If 'enjoy' is the right word, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did/didn't.


Mark

 

[Land of Nod]

Cool!! Thanks for sharing! It seems to be taking a long time for my computer to read it, but I can't wait to check it out.

 

[Hereford Eye]

Another case of publishers gone bad confirming the ancient Roman adage: caveat emptor!
I particularly enjoy the notion intentntionally or un that Lulu prepared the blurb. Having used Lulu myself, I know the author writes the blurb and the author in this case wrote it in perfect mesh with the book.

 

[kmtolan]

Publish America. Most of the early bad press about e-book quality can be traced directly back to these idiots. Sigh. Those days may be gone, but PA amazingly lives on.

Kerry

 

[N. E. White]

The scary part is the author's webpage almost makes me want to read it.

Thanks for posting, got a chuckle out of:

He had the shoulders of a water buffalo and the waist of a ferret.

At least now I know just how desperate I have to get before turning to Publish America.

 

[Land of Nod]

It really is wonderfully done and fun to read . . . since we know what's behind it.

I don't know what I would have made out of it if I had read it cold, but I'm enjoying reading it now.

 

[Hobbit]

I have read most of it, wincing as I went. (All for the sake of research, you understand.)

There is, for example, an obsession with ladies breasts that borders on the Heinlein.....

...and the dialogue is..... jawdropping.

Mark

 

[Land of Nod]

I have read most of it, wincing as I went. (All for the sake of research, you understand.)

There is, for example, an obsession with ladies breasts that borders on the Heinlein.....

...and the dialogue is..... jawdropping.

Mark

LOL! Yeah, could you imagine being a publisher and having that land on your desk? Beyond the bizarre writing, I'd be thinking: "What's wrong with this guy? He needs to get himself a girlfriend."

. . . but I have to admit, I'd almost be afraid to send the rejection letter. I'd be afraid that's the kind of guy who might show up with an Uzi.

 

[Dawnstorm]

Maybe you guys got it all straight away, but I had to stumble across the information on Absolutewrite.com:

Author name: Travis Tea

Say it quickly. And make sure you forget to put stress on the last name...

 

[JunkMonkey]

Thanks for that, Hobbit. Truly inspiring.

 

[MrBF1V3]

I remember hearing about it when it was first done. It makes me wonder if I'm not trying too hard to find an agent ...

Seriously though, for those who work at a professional level, writing something wrong isn't easy. I tried to write a bad story for one of the FF contests (Long story), and it kept turning out better than I wanted it to be.

Unless you're publishing the story of your family for the next reunion, it's best to aviod the vanity presses. --and if you're doing that, you can do some amazing things with desk top publishing. If you (I) can't convince someone besides yourself that the story should be published, it's best to keep editing.

... I seem to recall reading a review of a story someone wrote about a vampire that contained some of the most astounding quotes from the story--something about the hero being caught out in the woods at night, and red eyes were following him. Anyone else remember that?

B5