TOW Books: An Exciting New Sales Strategy!

John Warner, Chief Creative Czar of TOW Books, a publishing imprint dedicated to producing “funny books for people with good senses of humor,” unveiled the struggling imprint’s latest initiative that Warner promised will revolutionize the entire publishing industry.

“We’re giving the books away for free,” he announced in a statement on the TOW Books site. “The problem with books isn’t that they cost too darn much, it’s that they cost anything at all. Thanks to file sharing, music doesn’t cost anything anymore. Why should books be any different? Why should someone pay 10 or 15 dollars for something they’re not sure is going to be any good?”

The giveaway includes dozens of copies of the actual physical books TOW has released, along with unlimited free electronic copies.

In the statement on the TOW Books website, Warner says, “Look, the books are really good, but with something like 3,000 new titles released each week, it’s easy for really good books like ours to get lost in the shuffle. I’m going to make sure these books and authors are recognized, especially me and mine.”

Reached for additional comment, Warner further illuminated what he sees as the business sense behind the strategy. “It costs money to print up a bunch of books and then let them sit in a warehouse waiting around for the day they’re officially declared out of print and then mulched into wall insulation. If we’re going to be publishers, we have to keep printing books, so we can’t skip that part. However, under my plan we save all the costs associated with destroying unsold books. By giving away the books, how to dispose of them becomes the consumer’s problem, not ours.”

When asked about how he intends to generate revenue under this new model, Warner scoffed. “Revenue! This is publishing we’re talking about. Everyone says we’re going down the tubes anyway. I’m just delaying the inevitable by having us lose less money more quickly … or something like that.”

Warner pledged that this is just the first step to what he sees as an entirely new model. “This is just our initial way of stimulating direct to consumer sales … or direct-to-consumer giveaways … if you will. The next step is to establish retail stores that will house 3 to 4 copies of each book and then allow people to read them for free before returning them in exchange for another book. Just like now the stores will continue to make money selling coffee, and scones, and Hello Kitty backpacks, crap like that.”

Attention Readers and Reviewers
Interested in writing a review of a TOW Books for publication? We’ll send you a physical copy of the book. Just e-mail us your name, e-mail addy, mailing address, and the name of the publication you’ll be submitting your review to. Visit www.towbooks.com and click on "Contact."

Really, You've Done Enough: A Parents' Guide to Stop Parenting Their Adult Child Who Still Needs Their Money But Not Their Advice
by Sarah Walker

Let’s face it, everyone goes through the painful transition of learning that parents are really just people … people with faults, who probably made grievous errors when they raised you. And Really You’ve Done Enough has plenty of case studies, illustrations, charts, graphs, bullet points, and lists to prove it.

Packaged as an instruction guide to parents, you'll love this humorous take on adult children's relationships with their invasive parents.

Click here to download the book as a PDF file.

Oh, the Humanity! A Gentle Guide to Social Interaction for the Feeble Young Introvert
by Jason Roeder

Are you uncomfortable engaging in conversation? Do you have trouble making friends? Have you longed to have your deeply rooted social anxiety eliminated by a slender paperback you can read cover-to-cover over several lunch breaks? If your answer is yes-or if you're looking for the perfect birthday gift for that special withdrawn someone-the book you've been waiting for has arrived: Oh, the Humanity! 

This book will see you through all your interpersonal struggles:

• "I'm not very good at small talk. How can I get the least out of every word I use?"

• "My hobbies include scrapbooking, swimming with dolphins, and taking chain letters very seriously. How can I find people with similar interests?"
• "I recently decided to become a hipster schmuck. How can I rid myself of current friends incompatible with my new, ill-advised persona?"

Life is a precious gift that could be hit by a bus tomorrow. Isn't it time you lived it the way some total stranger who wrote a book thinks you should? Oh, the Humanity! is all you'll ever need to jump-start your social skills!

You'll also need a promotional Frisbee if we get some of those made.

Click here to download the book as a PDF file.

Everything Is Wrong With You: The Modern Woman's Guide to Finding Self-Confidence Through Self-Loathing
by Wendy Molyneux

While other self-help books might tell you that something is wrong with you, this book is here to tell you that everything is wrong with you. In your quest for perfection, are there things you've forgotten to worry about?

Like:

Are your toes weird? I'm not saying they are, but are they?

What if you think you are thin, but you actually have a vision disorder that just makes you see yourself as thin when, in fact, you are totally not thin? Think about it!

What if whenever you go out of town your boyfriend has crazy orgies at your house? And what if all your best friends come to those orgies? Of course I can't prove it, but can you disprove it?

Remember, if you were OK, there wouldn't be so many books and magazines out there devoted to helping you get prettier and be more stylish. I mean, if you think that publishers are just in it for the money, then you definitely have trust issues! How can you solve them? Please purchase this book to find out. And maybe buy an extra copy in case you lose this one. And a third one in case you get mugged on your way home and the mugger demands three copies in exchange for your life. It happens all the time. On the other hand, you could just walk out of here without this book, thinking that you are great just the way you are … and arrive home to find that your husband has left you because of your weird toes.

Click here to download the book as a PDF file.

So You Want to Be President? Find Out If You Have the Ego, Bankroll, and Moral Flexibility to Lead the Nation and Take on the World
by John Warner

Perhaps the better question than "So you want to be president?" is "Who wouldn't want to be president?" Consider the perks: Nice house (rent-free), massive staff (taxpayer-supported), private plane (and helicopter, and hovercraft, and super-secret modes of transportation the public doesn't even know about), guaranteed television exposure … it's like being Donald Trump, except with your own hair, and access to nukes.

Click here to download the book as a PDF file.

Coming Soon!
Don’t miss the latest from TOW Books this fall!

Forgotten Fashion
Smart humor for anyone who keeps up with what’s en vogue.
August 2008

The Ultimate Game Guide to Your Life
For anyone who has ever felt like life is like a video game.
Game pad not included.
October 2008

The Serfitt & Cloye Gift Catalog
Takes the wretched excess of the hyper-rich and ratchets it up to hysterical levels.
October 2008