At long last, my cover is finally ready!

The wait is over - who's excited?

“Writing a book is like making love to that special person in your life: messy, rarely fulfilling, but at least it’s over and done with quickly.”
Oskar Vylde

It’s taken way longer than anticipated (thank you, readers, for your patience), but the cover and final blurb are ready. I also have the ordering and pricing details.

Here’s the back cover blurb:

“Embark on a riveting journey through the roller coaster life of an English teacher in A Teaching Career Gone Wrong: Where Things Turned Dark Fast. Dive into the gripping saga of Daniel as he becomes entangled in a web of political intrigue and scandal. Witness his reckless pursuit of forbidden romance with his elderly students, a dangerous affair that catapults him into a world of deception and peril.

As things take a dark turn, Daniel finds himself trapped in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the authorities. Confronted by the harsh realities of his actions, he grapples with the looming anticipation of his own downfall. Get ready for an electrifying narrative that delves into the realms of power, betrayal, and the sinister machinations of political shenanigans.

Along the way, there might be some useful teaching advice and all the secrets to being a great language learner will be revealed (spoiler: there are none!).”

Speaking of things going wrong, my original book idea changed dramatically when I realised I had nothing useful or interesting to say. So I decided to share a semi-autobiographical story about the consequences of my poor choices. Most of it is true, except for the parts that are not. It was hard to write, and you might see me in a different light, but I no longer want to hide from my dark past.

I must thank my cover designer, Lirpa Loof, who did an excellent job of capturing what’s inside. It took her a few attempts, but by the fourth one, we finally got it.

The first is above, at the start of this post, which was cool but a bit too aggressive.

Here was the second, which was nice, but missing a certain…’something.’ It was too abstract for my liking as well:

The next one I didn’t like at all. I asked for something less abstract, and more surreal. But it wasn’t at all what I had in mind:

Finally, she got it perfect, and created this masterpiece, inspired by my favourite artist, Pieter Bruegel:

Along with the blurb on the back is this glowing testimony from the well-known Gruaniad literary critic, Pilar Folo:

“This book is just…how can I put it? Terrible. It absolutely sucks. But have pity on the poor guy and buy it. He needs to feed his daughter and I’ve read worse. But I can’t remember what. But I’m sure I have. Actually, most of it is so bad that it’s good. You’ll laugh hysterically at what a naïve fool Daniel is.”

And of course, most importantly, is the price. It’s taken me a lot of work, so the price might look high, but I assure you it’s worth it. Plus, I will be running special promotions throughout April, where for one hour each day, the book will be available for a 95% discount. But that hour will randomly change, and if I’ve programmed the algorithm correctly, it’s designed to be available to you at the most inconvenient time, most likely 3 or 4am wherever you are. But if you’re an insomniac like me, and glued to your computer, you might get lucky.

Otherwise, the retail price is $199.99. I know, I know, it looks like a lot. But it’s full of such great language advice, that it’s like paying for around 5 or 6 hours of private lessons. But you get so much more than just 5 or 6 hours of private lessons – you actually get somewhere around 100+ hours because the book is written so badly and is so bad and is so full of bad repetition and bad writing, that it will take you practically a lifetime to get through. But I promise it will be the best investment you ever made.

But wait…on top of all that, you get an entire book full of sentences beginning with ‘But…’. But as a bonus, most of them are grammatically incorrect and shouldn’t start with ‘but.’ But they do! But it’s good! But it’s the best book you’ll ever read!

There are some logistical issues to be sorted out with the link for purchasing, and it’s not working yet, but check back in a few days and it should be up and running:
DanielTHEguruOFteaching@gullible.org

The anticipation will soon be over!

In the meantime, more words of praise from a few critics unlucky enough to get their hands on advance copies:

“What can I say? Nothing. Nothing at all. As my mother always told me, if you don’t have enough nice to say…”
Ralpi Olof, The Norwegian Times

“It reminded me of a cross between the Da Vinci Code and UIysses by James Joyce: full of lies and written in incoherent gibberish.”
A. Parrel Phule, The Irish-Italian Review

“Brilliant! Incredible! Amazing! Profound! Smashing! It made me want to smash all my apples (and pumpkins)!”
Gull E. Bull, Literary Editor, The Seabird’s Beef

And some parting words of philosophical wisdom:

“In life, there are many types of books, but only one type of writer. Or maybe there’s only one type of typewriter. Actually, there are many typewriters or rather, types of typewriters. But only one book. Or writer.”
Marc Twayne

“Thou hath penned a fyne scholarly piece of poestry for posterity and fyne hath it be, fyne hath it is thine!”
Mack Beff, The Shakespeare Scholar