If you didn’t see our new Digital Publishing Venture, have a look. The TBR Press is only the finest digital books we can forcibly acquire. And seriously, there is so much damn money to be made in digital books right now, why NOT enter the fracas?
Heh. Do you love April Fools? I do. Here’s a collection of all the April Madness over the years. I love tradition!
Thanks to all the authors who willingly had their books acquired by us – including those who never responded to our email messages, since we acquired your books anyway.
April Fools 2011: Announcing The TBR Press: Just Another Digital Publishing Endeavor
April Fools 2010: Only the finest hand-crafted reviews for sale!
April Fools 2009: The ICH and Jane Litte threaten to sue us over the Bosoms book. We’re being bloody sued?!
April Fools 2008: We’re assimilated into the Dear Author network as Jandy and Jarah.
April Fools 2007: Chink & Jewy’s Romance Novels the unused original title Candy and I suggested for the site.
April Fools 2006: MY NAME IS MAN-TITTE THE TOP HEAVY. KNOW MY NAME AND DESPAIR.
April Fools 2005: Smart Bitches Who Love Fluffy Bunnies!
Happy April Fools, folks. See you next year!
Looking back over these makes me realize how long I’ve been reading SBTB! Love ya
Ha! my verification is “love99” may you have 99 more years of hot pink awesomeness
HA – I had the same reaction when I pulled all the old April Fools. Seriously, it’s been a LONG TIME. WOO!
Thanks for the laugh. You, Dear Bitches, are what makes it April for this fool. 😀
I seriously want to read Underhanded, though Sweet Man Titty comes in (ahem) close second.
I’d read a book about a lumberjack by moonlight. Can’t be any worse than the other crap I’ve been reading lately.
Shoot. I opened DA, all set to read an insightful, informed commentary about the new wild west we call the publishing industry. I forgot about it being April Fool’s day.
I don’t remember the Chink & Jewy one, but dear God, I’ll never forget it now. I laughed so hard, my boss came out of his office to make sure I wasn’t having a seizure.
The Dorchester boycott is worrying.
Really, really worrying.
Last year, there was a tabletop RPG publishing company which was exposed as doing the same damn thing. Actually, I’m taking the gloves off.
-The company is Catalyst Games Labs, owned by InMediaRes LLC, which is owned by a man named Loren L. Coleman and his wife.
-Last year, employees asked an ex-employee to pass their info along. It turns out the the Colemans (and their best friend, one Randall Bills) weren’t paying their artists and writers. Even to the point of writing the check in front of the person as a stylish show of “we’re this cool” and then not mailing it as promised.
-All methods to pursue this (calling them, asking, etc) were met with vague promises and no success.
-Then the whistleblower made his post, and all kindsa shit hit the fan. Turns out Coleman had asked his chief financial officer to falsify their earnings report to the IRS. And, to make matters worse, Coleman worked the booths at conventions. And pocketed most of the money. $100,000 in three year’s sales there was reported as $6,000
-Shareholders in InMediaRes reported not receiving money as per their stake. Loren’s response was that he’d forgotten to file the paperwork adding them on as shareholders after they bought stock. That’s right, his legal defense was to say it was fraud.
-The company immediately said they had found evidence of “Co-mingling of personal and company funds.” That’s right, the Colemans used the company as their own ATM, while a lot of their workers went unpaid
-They even found the only four printing companies left in the whole world who will print stuff for you without payment before they print your product. Then they didn’t pay them.
-After a month, they were trying to be the injured party, presumeably after trying to let the heat die off.
I may be wrong on a detail here or there, but that’s sort of the spirit of the thing. And Dorchester looks like it’s trying to do the same shit.
If anyone wants to see the original whistleblower posts and links, here.
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50989
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51136&start=0
I love, love, love the 2008 April fools review of the JR Ward novel…hilarious. I laughed out loud at your Phido description.
Ms McKenna, as one of the individuals responsible for tracking Maine writers please feel free to contact me. You didn’t hide your Maine birth despite the current governor so I’m sure you want to be noted.
Please donate a minimum of 3 of each of your books with an extravagant dedication in one copy of each to the Maine Author’s collection.
IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou and dear GODS I want some, ok most, of those books to be real!
April Fools 2005 was my first, and STILL my favorite. To this day, my husband and I will see something cute and say “I give him 5 hearts!”
OMG SO CUTE!!!!!
LOL. Can’t believe that’s 6 years ago!
Sarah, are we still supposed to see the April Fools joke when we go to the site? I have to click on the smart bitches link at the bottom to get to the main site.
@KimberlyR: I think the site is supposed to be back to normal; I’m getting the usual homepage here, at least.
I cannot believe it’s been five years since Man-Titte.
I still can’t get straight to the normal home page, and it’s April 3 here now!
🙂
Thank God—April Fools indeed. I thought it was true and hyperventilated. You little stinkers. 😉
@agtigress – WHOOPS. Gotta move a file. My bad!
Back to the standard home page at last! Thank you, SB Sarah.
🙂
Welcome back! So glad to have SBTB back in the present. I *loved* the sparkly website – brought back (fond?) memories of teaching web design in the mid to late 90s.
I have now poured clorox in my ears, and attempting to scrub the frontal lobe. Holy Man titty. Fabio refers to himself as FABIO. Didn’t anyone tell him referring to oneself in the third person is a sure sign of a dissociative disorder. {Back to scrubbing and laughing}
Fabio wants you to know that Fabio helped with the making of the site featuring Fabio, because Fabio is the sight and sound of romance.
I’m glad to be back. Many huge thanks to Joelle who fixed the site once my April Fools business had broken it. OOPS. Bad Fabio!
You win ALL the things. I’m just sorry I forgot to check the site yesterday! (In my defense, it’s because I was completely caught up in Mark Reads, since he had just finished reading Lord of the Rings.)
Well, I was fooled lol. Even tweeted to say it was nice. *doh*
checking out your other April Fool’s pages and now I WANT A BABY BUNNY!!! Soooooo cute!
Now look what you’ve done. I hope you’re happy.
OMG, I’d forgotten about the ‘Chink and Jewy’ April Fool! Just like the first time, ‘Aiya Vey’ had me laughing like a braying donkey.
I’m glad you post the history of the April Fools sites – they make me laugh every time.
I lurved the redesign, it was Fabio-rific! And then we will have a baby!
That vid was part of his Old Spice Man campaign shtick. Scripted for him I’m sure. I think it might have been an edited version of the original video.
I got up, sat down with a cup of coffee openened the sbtb website and thought “wtf?” as Fabio started speaking. Fabio and sparkling!? Hilarious!
Well, I’ll make sure to stop by the wine section before I buy any books. Thanks for the heads up! (Do you prefer dry or sweet wine?)
I for one would be willing to pay two cents for this service. And three cents seems more than fair for trilogies, to ensure that no spoilers make their way into your reviews. Oh, and if there are more than three books in a series and it turns out you don’t recommend that I read it, can I assume you’ll provide your own snacks for your postage paid return to the sender, or should I lay in a stock of chocolate and Cheez Doodles just to be on the safe side?
Police15 is my spam blocker thingie. “Why, yes, Officer, that package IS breathing. And also crunching!”
Fluffy bunnies! And Mantitte! All your April Fools days were new to me. I love them! Yes, you are impressively psychic, not just another witty face.
Ah darn – and I had chlling and the chocolate ready for you.
My spam blocker is talk59 – why yes, I would like to talk with you about 59 books (or more).
That should have been WINE chilling……
Almost wet myself over MAN-TITTE THE TOP HEAVY. Thanks, bitches.
OOo John DeSalvo….are you sure you can’t make this real?
I’m with you, Amy S—John DeSalvo would be the nudge that gets me to buy!
My security word is peace68—how did ya’ll know I was marching in Washington DC for that back then???
You and Jane always have the best April Fools jokes. I kept trying to get the page to load at the DA site, but it would flash and then go to the regular site.
I particularly liked how Amazon managed to trademark click, button, used, and site.
A little more foolery: http://www.harpercollins.ca/feature/harperglow/
I’m so happy you enjoy the April Fools as much as I do. I have such a good time programming them. The press release was written by Jane Litte, and we were very pleased to have been acquired for a day.