Some useful tips from Frank J. Fleming.

[Lying] is a pretty tried and true method you can adapt to any situation. For instance, I tried to get someone to buy Hellbender and he was like, “Wait. Is that a science fiction comedy? I only read true crime books.”

So I said, “That’s what it is. True crime. Maybe the truest crime ever. And extra crimey.”

And then when he bought it and flipped through it and was like, “This looks like it was written by a chimp pounding at a keyboard!” I was all, “No refunds!”

Lying is great. You can also use it to make whatever you’re selling sound better than it is, though I don’t need that for Hellbender, since it has already won five Nobel prizes in literature and is in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the greatest novel ever.

As an ever-struggling author, I’ll have to try some of these.