Essays

Okay, let’s get right to the hard sell. In the past I have always avoided the hard sell because I find it demeaning to both you and me. You know what you want, and you don’t need me telling you what you should want. Who am I to think I know better than you do what book you want to read? If you want to read that thing you bought last week, go right ahead and rot your brain with its insipid storytelling. Hats are another matter. Almost everyone has terrible taste in hats and could use my advice. When it comes to books, however, you have every right to read whatever trash or tedious fluff you wish. The fact that I have a WONDERFUL and HIGHLY ENTERTAINING novel coming on May 20^th, Going Home in the Dark, is yours to pre-order or not, as you see fit and depending on how smart you are. There’s no shame in buying and reading some other novel than Going Home in the Dark, no shame at all, only the tragedy of missing out on the higher income and happier personal relationships and greater sense of belonging in society that Koontz readers experience.

I despise hard sell of the kind we see in some ads for these new whole-body deodorants. Suddenly we’re supposed to believe that we reek of vomit-inducing odors not just from our armpits but also from every hollow and fold of our bodies? Are we really to believe we need to swab out our ears with an anti-perspirant, our nostrils, our navels? I had difficulty getting my nose deep into my navel to smell its most discreet folds, but with the help of a yoga master working in conjunction with an extremely strong former Mr. Universe, I was able to stretch my neck and violently collapse my upper body to be able to undertake the task. I discovered that my navel smelled faintly of baking bread, a most pleasant aroma that attracts rather than repels people. If you pre-order Going Home in the Dark, you will save many thousands of dollars because you will have no need of a whole-body deodorant or such products as colognes and perfumes. Why? Because this WONDERFUL and HIGHLY ENTERTAINING novel triggers the production of smell-good hormones that destroy odor-producing bacteria. As a bonus, your hair will be thicker and more lustrous. May 20^th. That’s when your life could change for the better. May 20^th. Smarter people will pre-order now.

I was recently talking with someone who read an advance copy of my forthcoming novel, Going Home in the Dark (available May 20^th, pre-order now), and he raved about how compelling it was and about how often he laughed out loud with enormous pleasure. If you are a cynic, you will say this person was a friend or relative of mine, but you are wrong. This person is someone I loathe and who despises me to the extent that he has made two attempts on my life and on three occasions has toilet-papered my property. When he phoned me, I expected the usual venomous insults and name-calling, but he began by declaring that, as much as he hated to say it, he found Going Home in the Dark to be WONDERFUL and HIGHLY ENTERTAINING. He said that as he read this UNFORGETTABLE book in advance of its May 20^th release (but available now for pre-order) he noticed that he smelled better, his hair became thicker and more lustrous, and his wife told him she loved him for the first time in ten years. Then he wept.

I’m no good at hard sell. I’m just too humble to aggressively push my work at you. It will have to succeed or fail on its merits, and I must trust in your taste, intelligence, and desire to have fun reading a novel as you have never had so much fun before.