Good God, how did you ever find us? But do come in! Come in, now that you’re here! And a warm welcome to the underdog of publishers: Here you’ll find the books nobody wanted (well, some of them anyway). The books that went out to about 22 million publishers just to collect the rejection slips (we’re in the process of collating them into a volume called Manuscript Rejection for Dummies). They positively rained on us, those rejection slips. Like bones with rancid bits of prose clinging to them. The number of rejection slips received actually seemed higher than the number of publishers we submitted to. More like 23 million.

One of the slips said there was no market for this (or any) kind of book, and sure enough: There isn’t. Another one said the book would never sell, and that, too, was right on the mark: You couldn’t give these things away (we did try). And when we went to press on our own with the first book, Uncle Franklin said it was a shame to fritter away your money like that. A truer word was never spoken, but guess what: We just did another book. And who knows, next year we may try our hands at a novel. Because it has more pages. It’ll look like a real book.

It’s not that we refuse to believe that the book market is dead (it is). Nor is it that we love to throw good money after bad (we do). It’s just that no one bothers you as long as you don’t turn a profit (we don’t). Obviously, we’re in fine fettle here. But hey, it’s better than getting a used car for the money (isn’t it?).

Just to give you an idea of the maturity of this outfit, here is our drawing of an underdog:

And here is our drawing of the top dog, that rare species of the vastly successful publisher. See what we mean? Why would he want to publish our books? Or yours? Naw, get out of here …

So don’t think of this farce as a publishing house. It’s more of a dog kennel. And take a look, the underdog is right in there, howling to beat the band, and waiting for the odd bone someone might pitch him. Oh, and if you feel like looking at some of the bones he already picked, just click your way on through. Some of them can even be ordered. With bits of rancid prose clinging to them. Or verse. Or worse …