Bernie Dowling's Blog: Bernie Dowling's 7 Shouts (or more)

This is not the book I am offering FREE for reviews
but mine is the same shape

I HAVE had a few modest sales of my Old-Child (OC) anthology Naughty Nineties Volume 1 and now I need some reviews.
As I write this, I see where Veronica Roth has garnered 9595 reviews for her Hunger Games knock-off Divergent. That number 9595 is obviously the bench mark so I am aiming for 7 reviews.
Read on to see how you can be one of the magnificent seven.

Naughty Nineties Volume 1: Steele Hill stories
This is my book for review.
Told you it was the same shape.

I WILL start with a confession. My sales of Naughty Nineties in no way reflected my high Amazon rankings in categories such as popular music books, funny mysteries and political humor, where I was ahead of hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of books.
The reality, as I suspected, is that most of the millions of Kindle eBooks sell zero copies or close to it.
I was creative enough in my marketing to attract the interests of the Amazon ranking ‘bots to achieve high exposure. Now I need reviews to turn interest into sales.
Here is how it works.
1. You “look inside” Naughty Nineties for a free preview.
2. You like what you see and you Email me bentbananabooks@gmail.com .
3. I buy you a Kindle copy which Amazon drops in your email box.
4. You write an honest review on Amazon and anywhere else you like.
Y
Y You might be a rebel and buy the book yourself just to thwart my well laid out strategy.
Don't forget the review, Fidel.

I
Simple, ey? Well, not much is simple in the world of independent publishing. We will see how we go.
Here again is where you Email me bentbananabooks@gmail.com
Dystopia certainly seems to be all the rage at the moment and our song is on that theme.
com/watch?v=FnjUXJqK1qg

Comic thrills for .99c
Bent Banana Books has all its titles at bargain prices this festive season starting with Bernie Dowling’s neo-noir novel Iraqi Icicle at .99c.
Check back regularly at www.bentbananabooks.com.au click on books in out gallery and see what bargains are on offer.
The Iraqi Icicle eBook bargain begins on December 7 at Amazon US. Your copy for Kindle is a few clicks and .99c away. The promotion begins at Amazon UK on December 8 for £.99.
http://btfy.me/htq4yr
http://btfy.me/7cyqtp

In paperback, your favourite online book stores will have the 368-page paperback in your eager hands for $US16-17 including delivery.
Here are just a few examples:
http://btfy.me/q3f6tw
http://btfy.me/y4dvkh
http://btfy.me/87v39p

For less than $20, you can give a paperback copy of Iraqi Icicle as a Christmas gift and have the eBook at your finger-tips for your holiday reading.
You might want to read the reviews before you buy.
Here is one from the most respected book magazines in the world, Publishers Weekly. At the very least, you will find out what an Iraqi Icicle is.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0...
Australian author Bernie Dowling applauds this promotion.
“I am pleased Amazon and Bent Banana Books have made Iraqi Icicle available at the EBook price of .99c,” Dowling said from his home north of Brisbane.
“I created the novel as a deliberate challenge for the reader with a headache from the sugar-hits of formula thrillers.
"Now, people can read the eBook to decide which friend would appreciate the paperback for Christmas."
He said the correct answer to what is an Iraqi icicle was find out for yourself.

Bent Banana Books has all its titles at bargain prices this festive season starting with Bernie Dowling’s neo-noir novel Iraqi Icicle at .99c.
Check back regularly at www.bentbananabooks.com.au click on books in out gallery and see what bargains are on offer.
The Iraqi Icicle eBook bargain begins on December 7 at Amazon US. Your copy for Kindle is a few clicks and .99c away. The promotion begins at Amazon UK on December 8 for £.99.
http://btfy.me/htq4yr
http://btfy.me/7cyqtp

In paperback, your favourite online book stores will have the 368-page paperback in your eager hands for $US16-17 including delivery.
Here are just a few examples:
http://btfy.me/q3f6tw
http://btfy.me/y4dvkh
http://btfy.me/87v39p

For less than $20, you can give a paperback copy of Iraqi Icicle as a Christmas gift and have the eBook at your finger-tips for your holiday reading.
You might want to read the reviews before you buy.
Here is one from the most respected book magazines in the world, Publishers Weekly. At the very least, you will find out what an Iraqi Icicle is.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0...
Australian author Bernie Dowling applauds this promotion.
“I am pleased Amazon and Bent Banana Books have made Iraqi Icicle available at the EBook price of .99c,” Dowling said from his home north of Brisbane.
“I created the novel as a deliberate challenge for the reader with a headache from the sugar-hits of formula thrillers.
"Now, people can read the eBook to decide which friend would appreciate the paperback for Christmas."
He said the correct answer to what is an Iraqi icicle was find out for yourself.

I TRY not to trouble myself unduly with matters of commerce.

For five days next week, I am giving away my enovel Iraqi Icicle. I do this not because I think it makes a lot of commercial sense but because others tell me it does.

It seems the Amazon algorithms will discover me this way.

I have a theory that in a thousand years’ time, a new set of gods will live on Mt Algorithm. Amazon will be the god of Books. Google will be the god of Discovery. PayPal will be the god of Commerce.

PayPal has proven a great boon for commercial Luddites such as myself. The payments take but a few minutes and the commercial records are somewhere on the internet.

I have spent about $5000 through PayPal. That I am a commercial publisher and have received not one cent into my PayPal account is a bit of a worry. But not too much.

One day, I will get around to sticking an estore on my website. Watch the cents roll in then!
In the meantime, I am content to give away my novel for a week. No paperwork there.

The print version of Iraqi Icicle will be unleashed on the world on January 26.
Here is the blurb to show you just what a fantastic novel it is. At the very least, it shows my editor Eoin O’Brien can write a great blurb.

‘A dead actress, a dead gambler, a dead professor, a dead fisherman …
‘With murder following his every step, determined under-achiever Steele Hill is tangled in layers of intrigue and deviousness.
Pulled from his cosy world of the racetrack, the rock-music pub and the gambling den, everybody the wise-cracking Hill meets is in danger, as he is sucked into the undertow of forces beyond his understanding. One ally is a reclusive teenage maths whiz, channeling Hendrix, and tapping into military software and magic mushrooms.
The fix is in and the bodies are piling up.
Leaping off the shoulders of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Iraqi Icicle is a wild and hilarious ride through the dark and murky worlds of gambling, drugs, politics and rock’n’roll. ’

The comparison with Catch-22 was my idea. As you know I am a humble style of fella. I asked Eoin if it was not too much and he said we could scale it down later. Eoin left it in so it must be true.

The paperback is priced at US$14.99 plus shipping and is available from Amazon and book stores, if you ask for it. (Please do.) Amazon will not make it available for libraries because I refused to surrender the Bent Banana Books ISBN. As always, the fabulous Maria from Thorpe-Bowker Australia got that ISBN for me. I was not giving it up.

I am not sure why Amazon will only deliver to libraries under its own ISBN. It is probably a commercial thingo and as you know I do not worry unduly about commerce

Iraqi Icicle is about 380 pages of near-perfect prose and $14.99 seems a fair price. For the technically minded, it is set in an 11-pt font. If I had put it in 12-pt and created two-page chapters as some of the best sellers do, that sucker would have been 500+ pages and a real bargain at $14.99.

The eBook comes in at 406 pages and it’s free. Now that is a bargain. I should make a killing from that. Just not sure how.

To obtain, your free copy during Jan 21-25, go to your local Amazon estore and download. If your country, such as Australia, has not got an estore, I think you can download free from Amazon US. But again that is a commercial affair, so I would not completely take my word for it. Worth a try but.

The US link is here http://www.amazon.com/Iraqi-Icicle-2n...

And here is the UK site http://www.amazon.co.uk/Iraqi-Icicle-...

http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_n...
(The Japanese will so get the rock-music references in Iraqi Icicle. That is not a joke; they will.)

I could not find my eBook on Amazon India. http://india.amazon.com
They tell me Iraqi Icicle might struggle in India because they do not get hard-boiled detective yarns. It seems they are into the ideology of “anyone can make it.” Goddamn Bollywood – it should be Mullywood, anyway – they need Martin Scorcese over there making film.

http://www.amazon.fr/Iraqi-Icicle-2nd...
(The French will love Iraqi Icicle. It would not surprise to see them start making the movie next week No-one’s ‘jáime-d it yet but it is only a matter of time).

http://www.amazon.com.br/Iraqi-Icicle...
No Curtirs in Brazil for Iraqi Icicle, yet, but I am sure Olympic Games visitors will be clutching a paperback to read during the boring bits of the synchronised swimming.

http://www.amazon.de/Iraqi-Icicle-2nd...
Fellow Aussie author Ryle Winn says his books sell well in Germany perhaps because so many Germans enjoy the backpacking experience in Oz.

http://www.amazon.de/Iraqi-Icicle-2nd...
I know Inspector Rex is an Austrian production but I might put a police dog, a german shepherd named Rex, in the sequel.

http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss...
I have never been to Canada but the people seem warm and the climate cold. Bit like Iraqi Icicle – cool title, hot novel.

http://www.amazon.it/Iraqi-Icicle-2nd...
Lots of people of Italian origin are in Australia and some of my important supporting characters are Italians. I love Amazon Italy because they call me the Autore which sounds so much sexier than the English translation.

http://www.amazon.es/Iraqi-Icicle-2nd...
Amazon Spain is running the American reviews of Iraqi Icicle which is nice of them.

http://www.amazon.cn/s/ref=nb_sb_noss...
“Me old China (plate)” is a great Aussie expression for “mate’’. I am afraid me old Amazon China has let me down. Iraqi Icicle is described as a book of
“Articles on Military Units and Formations of Iraq.”
That’s not quite a reliable synopsis of my novel and I will see if I can have that fixed.
All right, go to any of those countries where you have an Amazon account and download the eBook Iraqi Icicle for free January 21-25. If it is China, do tell us what the book on Iraqi military units is like.

Today’s video explains why my forebears emigrated from County Cork, Ireland, and I am therefore trying to flog books from Australia instead of living the pleasant life of the gentleman Irish farmer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIlqgs...

I love noir: books, films, plays; it does not matter.
This is why I lapped up this true-noir yarn of making a noir movie.
This is part 1 of my essay.


Critics praised Lindsay Lohan for the 2006 film Chapter 27
on the Lennon murder and now they're gonna crucify her.

A GAME doing the rounds is one in which we emerging/ nobody authors are asked to name our dream cast for the film of our novel.

I played recently and said I definitely wanted Lindsay Lohan to play Crystal Speares, the femme fatale of my novel, Iraqi Icicle. I said I thought she would make a good fist of the role. Besides, I added, think of the pre-publicity she would attract.

Little did I know, Ms Lohan had done just that for a minnowy budgeted film, The Canyons.

An excellent piece by Stephen Rodrick in the New York Times Magazine covers the filming and post-production of The Canyons, an LA film noir with a reputed budget of $250,000. Yair, that’s right, a quarter of a mill – total, not the catering bill.

Before we move to LA, I must say I was surprised to see an additional credit for the Rodrick article going to Editor, Sheila Glaser. In all my years in Australian journalism, I have never seen that done in our country. It was kinda nice to see the collaborative nature of journalism recognized, but I wondered if writer Rodrick was losing some of the glory for what is a glorious piece of journalism. To my distant Australian eyes, the unusual by-line reiterated that New York can be a strange place. But nowhere near as strange as Hollywood.

At the start of Rodrick’s article I was cheering passionately for the success of this venture. By the end, I was scratching my head in wonderment and was unsure what I thought about the film project, The Canyons.

Director (Hardcore, American Gigolo)/ screenwriter (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) Paul Schrader says he cannot raise enough money in Hollywood for the sorts of films he wants to make.

Author Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho) says he is disillusioned with the novel as an artform and wants to script films.

Schrader and Ellis both put $30,000 towards The Canyons, a film written by Ellis and directed by Schrader. Producer Braxton Pope does not say anything about Hollywood, literature or art but he has $30,000 which he kicks in. The trio raised another $160,000 through crowd-sourcing.

With that financial structure in place, I wanted The Canyons to succeed to prove you can make a decent publicly supported film noir for $250,ooo. But I really wanted it to succeed for the sake of Lindsay Lohan.

It is disgraceful how sections of the media, for fun and profit, have turned Lohan into the cartoon character LiLo, the poster girl of youthful self-destruction. Lots of young people have played up like second-hand lawnmowers and got over it. But the media script does not allow this possibility, in the third act, for Lohan.

When you read the Rodrick article, you will see that Lohan was sometimes unreliable and she caused a delay because of fear of the four-way sex scene in The Canyons. I did not read of one tantie from the woman working for $100 a day and a share of box office. Hardly the stuff worth the screaming headlines of her ruining the film making. The most offensive media banner read. “Why LiLo's a Delusional Asshole Who'll Never Legitimately Work Again.” WTF. FU, Jezebel.

Of the major players in the making of the film, only producer Braxton Pope comes across as focused and totally responsible.

Schrader seems sorta all right until we learn he has knocked back an offer from fellow director Steven Soderbergh. to do a free edit of the movie if given the footage for 72 hours.

Schrader said no. ‘The idea of 72 hours is a joke,' Schrader said. ‘And you know what Soderbergh would do if another director offered to cut his film?’ Yair, Paul but Traffic had a budget of $46 million (grossed $207 million), not $250,000.

That was when I cooled on the positive fate of The Canyons. That and the ridiculous trailer which seems to be pitching the film for the bad-movie cult circuit.

Doubtless some critics will try to wing the film to the bad-is-good circuit by panning Lohan’s performance. Because that fits their cartoon script for her.
But she’ll be right when she comes to Oz for the film Iraqi Icicle. Cast and crew members will take her aside to gently explain we don’t do unreliability on our movie sets. We have this ensemble sort of thing going where you do not let the others down.

I will cry if our budget is only $250, 000 and we will not have lame self-deprecating trailers. Oh and Steven Soderbergh is welcome to fly his own way over for a final 72-hr edit.

I can’t find a release date for The Canyons. But quite a few critics have taken to reviewing the trailers. However and wherever it comes out, the film is likely to turn a handy profit. And Lindsay Lohan is the main person to thank for that.

Fortitude Valley was not named
because it took guts to be there after dark.
It honored a ship which brought
Scottish immigrants to Brisbane in 1849.


AN American friend was surprised at the profane language Brisbane police officers use in my novel Iraqi Icicle, set between 1986 and 1992.
I was working only after hours in journalism for much of the period as I toiled full-time as a partner in an instant-print business.
The lot which befell me in the business was sales. Armed with a business card which read “sales manager” – I had no staff under me – I ventured out to talk to strangers about printing.
My prospective clients fell into various categories but two I remember well. The first were people who embraced me as a new-found BFF. The second tried to haggle a price so low, our business could not eke enough profit from the deal to feed a bird.
I was not enamored with the work but our business location was excellent.
It was in inner-city Fortitude Valley, near the Brisbane River and a stone’s throw from Brisbane’s Chinatown. I quickly learned it could have been more reliably called Vietnamtown.
I always tried to be back at the print shop for lunch so I could duck down to my regular Vietnamese restaurant. Main meals were $3, my favorite being squid stuffed with pork mince, served in a clay pot. A huge pot of steamed rice was 50 cents; a glass of wine or a pot of jasmine tea was $1.
Some of my friends said you risked life and limb in Fortitude Valley. I loved the joint with its mix of seedy nightclubs, music venues, the wonderful cafes and restaurants with the company of young artists and performers living in disused warehouses and ancient brownstones.
Apart from the Chinese and Vietnamese enterprises, most of the legal, illegal and in-between night-life businesses were controlled by Italians. That’s not racial stereotyping; that’s a fact. I must add many law-abiding generous and affable Italians lived and worked in Fortitude Valley and its surrounding suburbs.
Next door to our print shop was a strip club. Beside that was a gay nightclub which stood near an alternative live music venue.
A few hundred metres away was the building of the sometimes feisty, often strident, Sun tabloid newspapers, the Daily and Sunday Sun. By 1992 both had closed and the building was turned into apartments.
On the edge of Fortitude Valley was the Waterside Workers’ (longshoremen’s) Club which was a hub of left-wing politics, but also a lunch time refuge of assorted workers, mostly men. Public servants, firefighters and a sprinkling of racehorse trainers and jockeys were among the regulars. They gathered to talk and drink beer but gambling was a habit of many, so the meat-tray raffles and poker (slot) machines were popular.
Prostitutes worked the streets at night.
Fortitude Valley was a rough and tumble place, though I never had violence inflicted on me. Still, the local police station was a busy place.
Journalism, politics and policing were industries all marked by their practitioners liberally using profanities. It may have been due to the relatively small number of women in those professions, which has changed in recent times.
One memory remains.
Behind our printing business was a toilet and shower block which we also used as a warehouse.
Our managing director decided to rent it out to the strip club to make a few extra pennies.
One day two detectives burst into our premises to ask what we knew about the theft of a stripper’s car.
‘The poor girl had her car stolen and it was used in an armed robbery,’ one detective told us.
After a few questions he asked if he could use the phone.
This was his part of the conversation to HQ.
‘Anything on the poor girl’s car...What, they’ve caught the two blokes already…And she knew one of them…the fucking slag, we’ll do her.’
Morality was black and white for some police officers in those days. So it is for my character Sergeant Frank Mooney.
Buy the ebook of Iraqi Icicle is now avaiable from Amazon
The print version will be released on January 26.


Iraqi Icicle 2nd edition

Review of book by the common people http://bentbananabooks.blogspot.com.a... Can you believe it..

AUSTRALIANS will gamble on two flies. crawling up a wall, they say.
Aussie bookmaker Tom Waterhouse is currently betting on how much Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream will fetch at a Southey’s auction this month.
Waterhouse has previously wagered on the winners of reality shows such as Dancing with the Stars and The Voice to add a bit of zest to mundane wagers on political elections and Academy Awards.
Waterhouse’s mother is leading Australian racehorse trainer Gai and the bookie regularly reports on Monday how punters cleaned him out on Saturday backing Mum’s horses such as great mare More Joyous and unbeaten 2-year-old Pierro. It is always ``Mum’s horse” though it is a surprise the trainer does not say, ``When I am in a professional capacity, it is Ms Waterhouse to you, sonny boy.”
Tom Waterhouse needs to bet on an exotic event such as the Southeby’s auction to recoup some of the damage Mum’s ponies have reeked on the bottom line. It does not hurt that weird bets attract media attention, something London bookie Ladbrokes worked out decades ago.
I do not know how much Tom and Mum know about art but I would like to think it is a lot. It is comforting to believe wealthy people might slip a few stray bucks the way of artists.
Here is Tom’s analysis of the race to buy The Scream or Le Cri, in the land of the Oo-La-La.
``Sotheby's in New York is auctioning one of four versions of The Scream created by Edvard Munch and, as the only version owned privately, tomwaterhouse.com is betting $1.90 that it breaks the US$106.5 million record set by Pablo Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust two years ago.
"Of the four versions of The Scream, the one that's up for sale is the most colourful and the only one whose frame was hand-painted by Munch to include his poem detailing the work's inspiration.
"Sotheby's has listed The Scream at $80 million, the highest pre-sale value that the auctioneer has ever put on an artwork but even that figure looks somewhat conservative given the level of interest in the famous painting.”
So here’s the market.
The Scream sale price (including the buyer's premium)
$5 Less than US$80m
$10 US$80m to US$89,999,999
$9 US$90m to US$99,999,999
$4 US$100m to US$106.5m
$1.90 More than USD 106.5m
I am sure my gambling anti-hero Steele Hill would have a wager after consultation with arty girlfriend Natalie and polymath-bookie mentor, the Gooroo.
As a punter and an art fancier, I think Tom and his crue have got the market way wrong.
Tom admits there are four paintings of The Scream though he fails to mention the brace of Munch lithographs. This contrasts with one Picasso Nude, Green Leaves and Bust.
The prose-poem embedded in the frame is Munch’s reflection on how he came to paint The Scream.
I am not sure how many millions it is worth.
I was walking along a path with two friends –
the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red –
I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence –
there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city –
my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety –
and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.
That is my versification, BTW. I am not sure how Munch does it on the frame.
I reckon the best bet is the $5 shot, less than $80 million, though I would make sure the bookie wrote the ticket as fewer than $80 million.
Check out this blog shortly to see who is right.
If you wish to smile about the place of quirky Australia in the Universe buy my book 7 Shouts from Google eBooks or Amazon.

I am proud to introduce the fearless woman who knows everything about international literature, Lucretia Lit.
Lucretia knows where the bodies are buried and performed the last rights on some. This is Lucretia's first of many spectacular columns.
Cheers
Bernie




Messaging my Glitoris

with Lucretia Lit


THE media conference of the two heroes of self publishing, Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler has been aborted. They hired a crane but they still could not get the two egos through the door. ROWWR!

Amanda H, sweetie, are you sure you want to go with those legacy publishers? From Lucretia’s experience, many of them just want to throw the legacy over. SHAHOOWA!

Edgar Allan, please don’t go out tonight. It’s snowing. Surely there is some booze in the house. But do remember, though the toilet cleaner is green, it is not absinthe. ONTHEPISSAGAIN

J. K. dear, sure you do not want to rethink that contemporary novel thing. I mean witches’ hats down Revolutionary Road instead of on young muppets’ heads. You think it will work? Aunt Lucretia has one word: don’t. WOOSHKA!

Please send your literary goss to Lucretia Lit. Email bentbananabooks@gmail.com

REVIEWS in popular newspapers are consistently rating “fail’’ and it is a worry to book lovers.
Do you find yourself screaming at the review pages of a newspaper? It does not help but it can feel good.
‘Why are you telling me the book’s story,’ you yell. ‘I want you to give me a feel for the book so I can decide if I want to read the story in my own way.’
Late last year, a good article on this topic sprang from the pages of the Spanish newspaper El Pais and the cause was taken up by Melville House Books.
http://mhpbooks.com/44363/a-crisis-in...
The whole article is worth devouring but I will discuss a few points.
Editor Eliot Weinberger says, ‘Criticism, in the United States, has been reduced to “recommendations,” which come via reviews, blogs, and Twitter.’ http://www.mwf.com.au/2012/?name=Writ...
ME: While it is true that any reader’s interpretation is as valid as the next, the adjective “informed’’ used to be a valued qualifier of criticism.
What does not qualify as a system of nurturing informed criticism is a newspaper literary editor tossing a book across the table to a sports reporter who gets to keep the book but receives no other reward for the review.
No wonder the review will end up like this:
ReadySteadyBook founder Mark Thwaite: ‘Most broadsheet reviews consisted of “synopsis plus snide/clever comment” and that that was not, for me, any longer the way I wished to respond to a book as a reader/writer.” http://bloggasm.com/interview-with-ma...
ME: That is never the way I want a book reviewed. Editor Katy Evans-Bush puts the alternative succinctly.
Katy Evans-Bush: `The reviewer should be able to perceive layers of meaning, and style, and be able to talk about them.’ http://katyevansbush.com/
ME: Unfortunately digital media has largely not addressed the shortcomings of newspapers in lit crit as it has in other aspects of heritage media. I am a fan of user reviews but they are at their best as comments at the end of informed reviews. This is how new media works best in almost every other area of commentary. But there are some promising signs as one reviewer explains.
Book Rambler Janette says, ‘It'll take time for the literati to adjust to digital but that doesn't make it a bad thing, just new. We'll look back at today's lack-lustre and scaredy-cat gatekeepers and wonder why it took so long to sweep them away.’
http://bookrambler.wordpress.com/
ME: I am wondering now why it is taking so long to sweep them away. Book readers should be smarter than members of the average internet community, unless it is a sad reflection of the books they are reading. Without informed criticism, readers lack the opportunity to receive more from their books.
7 Shouts

Everyone knows 7 is a lucky number.
Well, you know that is not quite true though they tell me 7 is a lucky number in both oriental and Christian religions.
The Hollywood movie 7 was quite good, though it never became clear why it was called 7.
George Costanza said on an episode of Seinfield 7 was a good name for a baby. Jerry ridiculed him but I thought George was on to something.
There is enough evidence that 7 good reasons exist to buy a book called 7 Shouts.
1. 7 Shouts looks at separating history from humbug and urban myths from reality. The weekly My Shout columns are yet to examine 7 but in the twelfth year of my column, I promise to do it soon. Did Persil Benny lend his name to a detergent company? You will never know unless you buy 7 Shouts and that question will plague your mind for the next 7 minutes.
2. 7 Shouts is funny like Seinfeld and unlike the movie 7.The book finds mirth in our everyday life and language. That has to be a good thing.
3. Puritans, the pompous and pretenders will not like 7 Shouts. It is our duty to upset such people every day.
4. Barack Obama is in it as well as Russell Crowe and at least 7 other famous people who have endorsed 7 Shouts by not suing me – yet.
5. There are 7 Books in 7 Shouts. The Books have titles such as Slanguage, Funny Side Up, Her Story and People Power. It is spooky there is no Book 8, as I went to bed after writing Book 7.
6. My good friend, ventriloquist Daniel Anderson did 9 original illustrations for 7 Shouts. If you turn 9 upside down it becomes 6 which is only 1 off 7. Spooky, really.
7. If you do not buy 7 Shouts you will probably give your money to King, Brown, Koontz, Childs, Patterson, Meyer or Evanovich and those 7 have far too much of the stuff as it is.
Read the first 7 pages of 7 Shouts at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=H... and then buy it.
Do this quiz to see what you know about weird and wonderful Australia.
Believe it or not, as I post this, 7 people have done the quiz so far.
7 out of 20 is considered a good result.
http://www.goodreads.com/quizzes/by_u...