{"id":128,"date":"2021-03-15T08:41:22","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T08:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.novelty-fiction.com\/gazette\/?p=128"},"modified":"2021-03-15T08:41:22","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T08:41:22","slug":"roman-trend-bestseller-selling-lots-of-copies-from-death-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novelty-fiction.com\/gazette\/roman-trend-bestseller-selling-lots-of-copies-from-death-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Roman Trend – Bestseller: Selling Lots of Copies from Death Row"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not all that educated<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Johnny Handsome \u2013 Handie for short \u2013 is an elementary school dropout. No \npoint in beating around the bush about it: He was a petty thief at age 12, had \nrobbed his first gas station at age 13, and to this day \u201chands up!\u201d remains one \nof his most eloquent sentences on record. Matter of fact, his preferred manner \nof expression is showing off his tattoos, which are indiscriminately plastered \nacross his chest and arms. \u201cPretty cool, huh?\u201d he\u2019ll say while smoking an \nunfiltered cigarette or chewing some tobacco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Admittedly, he\u2019s had lots of free time at his disposal recently. Now 39, he\u2019s \ndoing some solid, rather serious time in Dade County, Florida, for a string of \nrobberies mostly aimed at jewelry stores and such. His cellmate Bubba, a big and \ncorpulent man, is scared of him and doesn\u2019t speak much except in sleep, where he \ntends to call home for mommy. \u201cGimme some of that apple pie with whipped cream \nand strawberries on top, will \u2018ya, ma!\u201d he moans, and some other night he\u2019ll go \n\u201cwaffles\u201d or \u201cpancakes\u201d instead. That\u2019s about the extent of Bubba\u2019s \nimagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With such a quiet cell mate, Handie should be perfectly positioned to mull \nthings over and maybe come up with an idea or two. Indeed he has, orchestrating \nseveral crime sprees to be carried out by his minions, the thugs that roam \naround the streets freely, some of them on bail, some on parole, and others \nhidden behind fake identities. All of them are willing to serve Johnny, who \nmerely needs to send out a few text messages via his hidden cell phone or to \npass on a note to one of the friendly guards.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When time is of essence, Johnny Handsome is the Man<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The life-altering event was when Garry McRow, a.k.a \u201cThe Lonely Strangler,\u201d \nasked Johnny to help him write a bestseller. Garry was scheduled for execution \nmerely six weeks down the road, and had pretty much given up hope, which in turn \nhad made him preoccupied with improving upon his \u201clegacy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDunno,\u201d Handie had replied to McRow’s intermediary in the work shop. \n\u201cKillin\u2019 them littl\u2019 girls not nice! Dyin\u2019 ain\u2019t wrong fuh Garry!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook at it this way,\u201d said the intermediary, who used to work for a \npublishing company. \u201cEveryone has the freedom of expression, and McRow\u2019s story \ndeserves to be heard. A cut-throat endeavor one might call it!\u201d The man laughed \nat his own joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Handie rocked his head back and forth, thinking hard. \u201cI can\u2019t even write \nfive words, man!\u201d he said, looking seriously puzzled. \u201cI know them body parts, I \nguess I could write about that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, no,\u201d the educated inmate said reassuringly. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to write \nanything, that\u2019s already being taken care of. All you need is to be sure that it \nbecomes a bestseller.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkey-dokey!\u201d Handie said, nodding and coming about as close to smiling as \nanyone had ever seen. \u201cI\u2019ll pass it onto the street level, pickin\u2019 up some purty \ngood vibes there. And eh\u2026, let\u2019s see if any of them low-lifes has any good ideas \nfor passing on a few of them books.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot a few!\u201d the intermediary whispered. \u201cIt\u2019s gotta be at least 10 thousand \ncopies before the execution!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHumph?\u201d Johnny exclaimed nasally. \u201cThat\u2019s a load of books. They\u2019re any \ngood?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s plenty of sex and violence. I\u2019ll have one of the guards drop off a \ncopy tonight. That\u2019ll give you something to get your rocks off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll right my man,\u201d Handsome said as he turned around and started walking \ndown the hall back towards his cell, his long hair swaying from side to \nside.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It really worked!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Now, three weeks later, about 16,000 copies of Garry McRow\u2019s book \u2013 \u201cMessing \nWith A Silver Blade\u201d \u2013 have been sold around Dade County alone, many of them at \ngun point. Another 23,000 have been sold through Ebay \u2013 usually as part of a \npackage including free stolen jewelry or vintage wines. Over a thousand copies \nare each day being sold by prostitutes, who offer a \u201cfree quickie\u201d to anyone \nbuying at least two signed copies, hardback edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McRow, while not looking forward to the execution, is a lot happier now that \nhis legacy has been preserved. \u201cSpring me outta\u2019 here and I\u2019ll go on a book tour \nwith \u2018ya,\u201d he says to the intermediary, whom he has hired as a literary agent. \n\u201cThat\u2019ll really blow their minds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnny, who merely had to send out a bunch of text messages to orchestrate \nthis marketing campaign, has started writing a book of his own. \u201cCool is Better \nthan School\u201d is the working title, and he already has a solid sales strategy for \nthat one too. <\/p>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not all that educated Johnny Handsome \u2013 Handie for short \u2013 is an elementary school dropout. No point in beating around the bush about it: He was a petty thief at age 12, had robbed his first gas station at age 13, and to this day \u201chands up!\u201d remains one of his most eloquent sentences […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-transparent-header":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quarterly-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novelty-fiction.com\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novelty-fiction.com\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novelty-fiction.com\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novelty-fiction.com\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novelty-fiction.com\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/novelty-fiction.com\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novelty-fiction.com\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novelty-fiction.com\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novelty-fiction.com\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}