The Devil’s Dictionary was Ambrose Bierce’s comic take on Noah Webster’s Dictionary. It was originally published as the Cynic’s Word Book by Doubleday, Page and Company in 1906. The title was later changed when Bierce was editing his collected works in 1911. Since it’s publication the concept has spurned hundreds of imitations.
The latest versions to hit the blogwaves deal with the book and publishing industry.
Here are some highlights:
Cover Art – the design of the book jacket, generally produced in-house by the publisher’s art department, all of whom are near-sighted psychotics who never actually read the book and routinely forget to take their meds. (pw)
E-book (electronic book): The publishing format that has the highest ratio of “time spent discussing it in meetings” to “copies sold.”* Authors fondly believe that tens of thousands of readers who’ve passed up the opportunity to buy attractive, inexpensive hardcopy editions of their works will nevertheless go to great effort to illegally download wonky, badly formatted e-texts of the same books in order to read them in Courier on their computer screens. (ml)
Out of Print – a title no longer maintained in the publisher’s catalogue or inventory, the rights to which the publisher controls to prevent the author from making any more money for the work and to exploit in the future if the author should ever become famous writing something else. (pw)
Remainders: Proof that your publisher generously paid to print and distribute enough copies for them to be made available to every reader who might conceivably find them attractive; which, necessarily, means that there will be copies left over. As an alternative to being pulped, these are sometimes offered at reduced prices to readers who, if they enjoy the book, will be primed to buy your next one at normal retail prices (ml)
Self-publishing: How authors who are slow learners find out about marketing and distribution (ml)
Small Press – 1) the publisher of authors who can’t sell to major publishers; 2) the last stop for a multi-rejected proposal; 3) the last resort for a science fiction writer’s version of The Book of Your Hear (pw)
The text of the original version
Paperback Writer (pw) versions:
The Devil Made Me Do It
DPB II
Making Light (ml) Version:
Corrected Definitions
Don’t miss the comments sections of the posts above for some more clever entries