Nice. Of course, nothing in Dr. Elliott’s book is ghostwritten.  Nothing at all. No connections between his book and, say, emails sent to him between April and June 2009, or long conversations at the parents’ house at Christmastime.  Nopers. Not a thing.
A horse head mask. Fun for Halloween, or just around the neighborhood. For extra laughs, put it in the bed of one of your enemies. Shotgun sold separately.
You’ll be done with White, Coat, Black Hat in 2-3 hours, but a horse head mask will give you a lifetime of fun.
The New York Times’ Freakonomics blog reports on a new marketing strategy known as “unbranding” — upscale companies sending their competitors’ goods to downmarket celebrities, as a way of damaging the competitors’ brands.
In one day, White Coat, Black Hat has moved to #41,390 on the Amazon.com bestsellers list. On a related note, Dr. Elliott’s September 15 book-signing event has been moved to the sidewalk in front of his house. Look for a white cargo truck with boxes labeled Beacon Press.
Note to aspiring writers out there: If you ever hire (sorry: VOLUNTEER) a family member to set up a website telling everybody how great you are, and how much everybody loves your book, and then somehow you get published in some big fancypants magazine – well, you might want to tell said Family Member about the article sometime before it disappears from the newsstands.  Your Family Member does not sit around all the goddamn day googling your name to see if anything interesting shows up.  This is what we call WEB CONTENT. You publish something, you post it on your website, people go out and buy the magazine.  Then you can go out and use the money to buy trinkets. Is that hard?
It’s not like the Family Member will not learn about your article eventually.  At Thanksgiving, for example, or at Christmas dinner, or every friggin time he calls home, he will hear that you published something in the New Yorker. That’s understood.
