The following are actual quotes from books I've edited. To protect the guilty, authors and titles have been omitted. However, they should give you a good taste of what I had to endure:

From an infamous born-again Christian biker novel:

The nurse's face turned beet red. She aimed a vicious finger at Ally and shouted, "You heathen whore! I visit our leaders to help them share with God's chosen. You sleep with filthy heathen Eskimos!"

Later on, the heathen whore, a doctor, explained her humanitarian reasons for shtupping the Inuit:

"If I fornicated with a hundred Eskimos so I could doctor their wives and babies, I'm probably holding back on the estimate."

From a book about aliens landing unobserved in an American city for the purposes of world conquest and co-opting unwitting characters into their breeding program. Like many of the books, it displays a third-grade understanding of sex:

"Big Doc waited for his wife to bring up the subject of acquiring a uterus for her."

"She stared at what was an artificial vulva where before had been her navel and burst into tears."

From an attempt at a horror novel, two characters, Elie and Don, are lost on a back road. They decide to ask directions from some locals:

" 'I'm sure one of them would know if this so-called dirt road runs into 243,' Elie suggested.
'I'm not sure if that's a good idea,' Don remarked. 'They're all wearing the same kind of coveralls.' Elie looked at him as if he was the crazy one.
'What in the hell does that have to do with anything?' "

" 'There is some kind of evil in our tank farm. Where it came from or why, I couldn't tell you. Kevin was attacked by hungry skull heads.' "

"He shut his eyes, just to find them still there when he opened them back up."

In this (actually hilarious) comedy, we find out about the secret history of la isla encantada in an argument between a Puerto Ricana named Consuelita and a cowboy named Tennesse

" '. . . the Puerto Rican armada ruled the seas and most of the civilized world as it was known at that time. My God, man, don't you read books?'
'I've heard of the Spanish armada,' said Tennessee, 'but—'
'That's another story. They had one, too, but they were defeated and subsequently destroyed by storms. The Puerto Rican armada have never been defeated. They were invincibles and conquered all of Europe and civilization as they know it at that time.'
'Why is it,' said Tennessee, 'that Puerto Rico is not a major power today?'
'Oh, that is because the Puerto Rican peoples start to take the religion to their heart, and they fell guilty about all the cruel deeds they have done, and so they decide to be nice guys and let the rest of the world do the bad things.' "

Later in the book, when Tennessee and Consuelita run into some trouble:

" 'Why don't you call in the Royal Puerto Rican Air Force for an air strike?' "

From the autobiography of a woman who was actually in Plan 9 From Outer Space, and then became a made-for-TV move producer:

"The studio sent us off on a brief jaunt to Utah to try to convince Donny Osmond to take the role. I doubted whether he had the acting skills to play a retarded young man."

[In defense of that passage, and my opinions of Donny Osmond aside, it takes a consummate actor to play a character with Down's syndrome. It just reads really funny. . .]

Then there's just the random weirdness:

"The girls smashed Buck's testicles, trying to flatten them. When they found out they were not getting any flatter, they gave up."

"His mother became very hot and Toddy actually forced her to go to bed."

"Yes, Steve never saw Ward Cleaver holding the Beav down while June peed all over his face. He would have remembered that episode."

By now, you're probably asking why we would advocate anyone reading this stuff. Well, there are several reasons:

Firstly, because there are real gems in the drek.

Secondly, even though some of those books may have been hell to edit, sometimes they're so bad, they're hysterically funny. In other words, they're worth the purchase price for kitsch value alone. Plus, you'll have a really witty topic of conversation if anyone asks you, "So, read any good books lately?"

However, there's a third reason to read vanity press books: This is the real alternative press. Not subject to any editorial control, the writers simply poured their hearts out on the page, mailed their checks, and saw their words in print.

And, I've found, if someone wants to say something that badly, it's usually worthwhile to listen to them.

About the writer: Ken Mondschein now works someplace a little more reputable: Here.

Read any good books lately? Write editor@corporatemofo.com