Richard McGowan's Blog: Smashed-Rat-On-Press - Posts Tagged "instigation"

This portrait was completed back in September, but I've been saving a major roll-out for some special occasion. The impending new year is as good at time as any, perhaps, so here it is: a half-year calendar from Smashed-Rat-on-Press (*). Get the fully-loaded high resolution printable PDF here for a limited time only: Happy New Year 2015.

Those three of you who have read the Embargoed Earth series of books put out by University Press of Brnzklug Bafnerpolg will recognize the cast members instantly. The rest of you will just have to take advantage of the special year-end giveaway of the entire set available only here on GR for those who know the secret handshake and how to send me a message saying you want the special ice-cream.

The hand-colored group portrait was rendered by Lon Ryden.

Happy New Year, and may the Peace of the Rodent be with you...

(*) It's only a six-month calendar because at SROP we know that being cheap is the American way.

Well, Indie Author Day is over. Our SROP books flew off the store shelves like hot pickled cockroaches. I'll tell you it was absolutely as exhausting as watching paint dry... So now we're back to hunkering down in solitude after that lack of hoopla.

Speaking of paint... Many years ago, I remember reading, in one of those slick magazines like OMNI or Smithsonian, a full-page print advertisement for an automobile. It wasn't just any car, it was a very exclusive, hand-made sports car. The kind they don't make on an assembly line, but lovingly put together piece by piece, one car at a time. And their annual production run was limited to the low double-digits. (Needless to say, as I vaguely recall, the price tag matched what you might imagine for such a fine machine.) The advert touted the car's fine features, gorgeously layered paint job, et cetera... And it ended with something to the effect of when your friends ask where they can get one, you tell them they probably can't.

That's kind of like the Smashed-Rat-on-Press business model, except that rather than appealing to rare people who like to show off their pocket books as thick as the Eiffel Tower, we appeal to the kind of ruggedly independent (but possibly unbalanced) reader who might go for a hike in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Just imagine those photos on your Facebook page! Better yet, just imagine those SROP volumes on your bookshelf...

Wait wait... Did you believe the click-bait headline about finding SROP books in a library? ;-) Sorry.

Heh heh. Follow the bread crumbs. And don't forget your rad suit.