Letter from Goodloe Byron, regarding the completion and start over of book tour and the christening of the book cover showdown:
The Zero Dollar Tour is over, long live the zero dollar tour. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, last September a friend of mine and I loaded up a truck with four thousand copies of a book and went around handing them out for free, mostly to vagabonds. We went to Chicago then up to Seattle down to LA, back to Chicago etc. The heap of books has dwindled down regularly since then to basically nothing, and now down to nothing, proper. Last Saturday I was going about my DC rounds when I heard there was an arts and crafts fair out in Silver Spring. After several hours of sitting on the curb and offering helpful information, the final book, # 10,544, was handed to a young lady to whom I shouted "Damn you! Just take it", a less romantic conclusion than I had anticipated. So now, at last, the jig is up and the books are gone.
The free book tour has received a level of public enthusiasm ordinarily reserved for a free Manson tour. It's been a very refreshing thing to do. It's brought me from desolated metropoli, to isolated trailers in the badlands, podunks, Florida beaches and the like, handing them in parks when its warm and stacking them in dozens of coffeeshops a day when it's cold. I started off terribly intimidated when I looked at the mountain of boxes in the barn, and now I've been increasingly worried when staring into the growing vacancy where it was. So long and short, I think I'm going to print up another ten thousand copies and keep it going.
Which brings me to the next point, as the French say, les 'Book coveurs'. I've gotten plenty of remarks from people who liked the book but disliked the cover, loved the cover but hated the book, were ambivalent about both but saw a disparity between them and so on. That and that the cover seems to give the impression that the book's a playful horror story seems draw children right over to my free books table. The consequence is, unfortunately, that I have spent several afternoons in parks handing them out to children, reluctantly corrupting our nation's youth.
So for this second printing, I've spent the past couple nights sleeplessly in my laboratory drawing several abominations to God, and in the end, four less or lesser passable covers. Here's where I could use a hand. Since this modest task has pretty much obliterated my abilities to reason, see and empathize, I was hoping those of you who have a moment might take a look for me and let me know if I'm about to step out into traffic, or if you think one of these better captures the espirit, or looks better. Please note that there will be no election with regard to the actual text of the book, and this is not the time to suggest a more satisfying novel or thought provoking plot twists. In a true act of mimesis, the exterior façade will be democratic, while the interior remains comfortably totalitarian. That being said, these books will be spending most of their time closed, by far, so I really would appreciate your opinion. There isn't a voting system on the website, but please take a look at this page and then shoot me an email if you've got any thoughts.
http://www.brownpaperpublishing
All de best,
Goodloe
goodloeb@gmail.com
