Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent.

Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ … these are a few of the social media sites that I don’t feel a great need to push on authors. Their usage is minimal, their markets are niche and their options are limited. But while we’re at this whole platform thing, I figured I should spend some time at least touching on these sites.

Social media sites come and go, and Pinterest is the most recent site to see a major usage spike. Consequently, businesses and brands and marketing teams are just now beginning to infiltrate the site and use it for their evil purposes of getting you to buy, want, need things or experiences that you normally could care less about. So naturally, there’s buzz in the industry about how to use Pinterest to promote books.

But let’s be clear about what Pinterest is…Pinterest is a site that allows users to “pin” images found on the web onto their virtual pinboards. There’s minimal text involved because it’s a visual site. It’s all about virtual scrapbooking. To give an even better idea of what/how Pinterest is used, I’d say right now it’s probably the biggest fad among brides-to-be. They can have their wedding pinboards where they gather all of the pretty photos they see online…photos they’ll then use as wedding inspiration.

So why are authors feeling the pressure? I honestly can’t say, and if you’re reading this, baffled by corporate America’s desire to turn Pinterest into a marketing trap, then you and I can have a drink sometime and shake our heads at marketing teams who feel they have to have all of these online presences just because “everyone’s doing it.” Personally, I wouldn’t waste my time with Pinterest. I think it’s a fad that will fade, and your time would be better spent with more tried-and-true sites.

But, if you must do some pinning, here are my thoughts:

1. Create a pinboard of your novel covers. People are very visual, so what better use for Pinterest than to gather all of your book covers (provided you’re a multi-published author) and put them on one pinboard that can be easily shared with fans/friends? It’s a great way to promote old titles and hopefully get them circulating around the Internet. (You may even want to ask fans to re-pin…or create a contest that encourages them to do so.)

2. Create a “novel inspiration” pinboard. Novel characters are usually inspired by celebrities, and settings are inspired by real places. So why not tease your fans by creating a pinboard that holds a bunch of photos of people and locations that inspired the book? This would also be a great thing to pass on to your publishing house’s design team . . . it would give them some help when creating the perfect book cover.

3. Create a novel comparison pinboard. This can especially work for unpublished authors. Think of the authors within your genre who write similar stories to your own. Gather their book covers, author photos and what-nots, and put them on a pinboard. This can be your “If you like ________, you’ll also like my book!” board. You never know when it might hook some potential fans.

4.Create an upcoming cover art pinboard. Fans love leaked images, so when you begin working through cover designs with your publisher (or even if you epublish!), be sure to “leak” the images to your pinboard. Ask for fan input and make them feel part of the process. Plus, Pinterest is designed to make it easy for users to share images…so again, if you start seeing your book’s cover appear on multiple boards, you know you’ve got a winner. (You may even want to ask them to re-pin…or create a contest that encourages them to do so.)

5. Leave comments on other cover art/novel images on Pinterest. This is where you can go out and get new fans…When you see a cover that has been grabbed by another Pinner, and the cover happens to be in the same genre and to the same audience as what you write. Feel free to leave a comment, pointing people to your fan page or book. Don’t be too aggressive with this, but a nice, fun comment followed by a simple link is always welcome.

If you’re interested, you can check out how agents use Pinterest. As soon as cover art is available, I pin my authors’ upcoming books. It’s a great way for potential clients or editors to get a feel for what types of books I do.

Anyone else have any thoughts, questions or great Pinterest ideas? Share them below!

Someone wrote to ask, “Why are you calling it a ‘competitive titles’ works section, when we used to call it a ‘comparative works’ section?” My answer: Either works. The goal is simply that the author is trying to help the publisher see that MY book is like HIS book, or that MY book appeals to the same audience as HER book. So you’re comparing titles, in order to give your proposal some context in the mind of the acquisitions editor.

 With that in mind, let me suggest some traps to avoid:

Don’t pick a book that has sold more than 250,000 copies. Ifyou’ve writing a juvie book and compare it to Harry Potter, you’re going to look stupid (“Rowling sold a bazillion copies, so I can too!”). Anything that has sold that many copies isn’t a competitor, it’s a conqueror. Ignore it and use something else.

Don’t pick a book that has sold twelve copies. That suggests to the editor that “nobody cares about this topic.” Hey, Solomon once told us the writing of books is endless. So if there has never been a successful book on the United States Parrot Importation Act, there’s probably a reason.

Don’t ignore the obvious successes. If you’re doing a military historical novel on the Battle of Gettysburg, it would be pretty dumb to leave off Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels. That sends the message to the editor that you don’t really know your field.

Don’t make snarky comments about other books. I often see that, and it’s annoying to have some unpublished wannabe send me something that says, “THIS book was successful, but it’s not nearly as good as mine,” or “THIS book sold 100,000 copies, but the author does a poor job with dialogue.” A comparative analysis section isn’t a review of everything on the market — it’s simply a vehicle for helping the editor know how to position your particular title. 

Don’t guess about facts if you use one of the publisher’s own books. In other words, if you’re going to send something to Little, Brown, and you want to use Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian as a comparable title, make sure you have all your facts correct. Because you’ll look like a bonehead if you state the book came out in 2002, the author’s name was “Kosovo,” and sales were 50,000. (All of those facts are wrong.)

Don’t be afraid to use a publisher’s own titles. If you have a suspense novel that you’re trying to sell to Thomas & Mercer, by all means reference their Vince Zandri titles. (Vince writes in the genre and has sold more than a boatload of e-books to thriller readers.) It will immediately help them understand the audience for your project.

Again, the goal here is to help a publisher get a frame of reference for your book. It’s a way of stating, “My book is similar to these five titles, that have all seen success in the marketplace. There is clearly interest in this type of book, and your house has done well with this genre in the past.” You’re basically making the editor’s job easy for him or her. It won’t be the deciding factor in whether or not they publish your book (for that I suggest you come up with a good story and some great writing), but it helps move your proposal along. One less reason for them to say no.

And let me finish this with a true story: A young writer sends me a fairly well done YA fantasy proposal, and his competitive titles are The Lord of the Rings and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. When I suggest to him that he might want to change to something a little less iconic, he replies, “Actually, my books are MUCH BETTER than those two titles — but they’re the only ones that come close to my work.” Gag.

Karen wrote and said, “The hardest part of a proposal for me is the ‘competitive analysis’ section. Any advice or tips?”

Sure – think about the purpose of that section. Publishers bascially sell in lines — that is, if they are currently selling a lot of fitness and health titles, they’re going to want to publish more fitness and health titles in the future, since they know how to market and sell those. (One of the things that drives publishers crazy is seeing a proposal that screams, “You’ve never seen anything like this!” Or an agent that says, “You’re not currently doing any books in this genre, so I thought I’d send this to you.” Huh? If a publisher isn’t doing any books in one area, they’re probably not going to know what to do with that project. An easy rejection.) So the “competivie analysis” section of your proposal serves as an advance organizer. It tells the publishing team, “THIS book is similar to THAT book. If you could get excited about THAT title, you’re sure to like THIS title.” Make sense?

What most authors do is to head over to Amazon.com and spend a little time doing research. Search by title. Look at key words. If you find an author who has done a book similar to yours, check out his or her other titles (since authors have a tendency to maintain an interest in a topic, just like publishers). What you want to do is to find a handful of titles (normally about three to seven) that are similar to your proposed book.

In your proposal, you want to list the title, author, publisher, and release date. You need to give some indication of what the sales were, if you can find them (that will take a bit of research). Then you want to explain very briefly how that book is similar to your own. And, in many cases, you want to offer a short explanation of how your proposed book is different.

More on the competitive works section of your proposal tomorrow, but I’d like to know what tips you have for other authors as they put together this part of their proposals.

Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent.

A few weeks ago, we discussed how to use Facebook when you’re an unpublished author looking to grow your platform. So this week, we’re going to turn the tables and focused on published authors (this applies if you’re e-published, self-published or traditionally published).

Most of last week’s rules still apply. 1) Keep your personal and professional pages separate, and 2) It’s not about quantity of followers, it’s about quality. But while the previous post focused more on creating a Facebook fanbase out of nothing, this one is going to focus on how to 1) improve the one you have and 2) ensure it’s a positive reflection of who you are as an author.

5 Tips for a Thriving Facebook Author Community

1. Pay attention to design and usability. Authors who are in this for the long haul will take a portion of their earnings and put it toward marketing. Despite its built-it-yourself usability, Facebook shouldn’t be overlooked as a space that needs some TLC. Take the effort needed to have a really great cover/banner/masthead(whatever they’re calling it) designed for your Author Facebook Group. Then, spend the time needed to navigate your page and make sure information is available. If you have a bunch of speaking events, add them to your events board. If you do really great video blogs (vlogs), add them. If you like to blog in your Notes section, then highlight that. You can even customize what info is highlighted on your page’s top navigation. Take Ted Dekker for example. He’s included email updates and event listings in his Facebook page’s top navigation. Charlaine Harris is another great example (though her banner is a bit lackluster)…she’s promoting signed copies of her book on her Facebook page! And what’s even better, is she’s driving customers to retailers. That’s a win-win.

2. Leak info! Fans love to feel in-the-know. Give them a reason to visit your Facebook page by providing them with “leaked” cover art, story ideas and new book deals. Remember, they’re there because they love your writing…not necessarily because they love you. A little personality is great, but keep the focus on your books and characters.

3. Post regularly. Don’t let the page die. Keep it populated by trying to post one thing per day. This is essential, because Facebook is structured to highlight stories that it thinks users care about. When a user visits your page, Facebook remembers that and will continue to highlight new content from your page until it feels the user no longer wants to visit. By remaining active, you stay at the top of your users’ Facebook feeds.

4. Visit with fans. This is another Facebook popularity strategy, but I’ve noticed that when I interact with a friend, I’m more likely to get updates from them and vice versa. Spending time to visit with your fans (click around on their profiles, mention them in posts) will get them coming back for more.

5. Focus your audience. This is primarily for authors who write to multiple audiences. You want to have an outlet for each of those audiences, because let’s face it…those who read your teen fantasy series aren’t going to want to hear/talk about your adult cozy mystery series. So be careful with assuming that a fan of Jane Doe is a fan no matter what you write. That’s not always true.

It’s pretty straightforward stuff. But what if you don’t have much of a following to begin with? Well, start off by reading my previous Facebook post. But here are some additional ideas…

5 Tips for Growing Your Facebook Author Community

1. Giveaways. It seems we can’t say it enough, but giveaways really can increase your reach…if they’re done right. Be sure to include in the rules that to enter, users must “like” your page if they haven’t already and then share it on their wall. If they do this, enter them to win a free book or something of the sort.

2. Bylines. To have a strong web presence, you’d better be doing guest posts, guest podcasting and guest e-zine columns. When this happens and when your name appears elsewhere on the web, be sure to link to your Facebook group.

3. Street teams. I’ve said this before, but a street team is a great way to mobilize people to tell their friends about your books. Put together a Facebook street team of your 25 (or so) most dedicated fans. Agree to provide them with promo material, a free book and other alluring tchotchkes. In return, ask that they work to find you 10 new Facebook fans each month or so.

4. Back cover copy. There’s no reason that your Facebook URL, Twitter handle and website info can’t all show up somewhere in your book. Fight to have it on the back cover or where your Author Bio is. And if you need to add it in yourself when you hand in the final draft, so be it.

5. Promotional items. The same goes for postcards, bookmarks, and any other promotional piece your publisher (or you) may provide. Include your social media info. And if you really want to get fancy, include a QR code on your promo materials that directs users to your website or Facebook group.

Just a bunch of random ideas this week, and I do feel as though I’m reiterating the same rules. But does anyone have any questions or thoughts? I’d love to help troubleshoot issues or herald your successes.

Staying on the topic of proposals, Dania wants to know, “What is the purpose of a market analysis in a proposal? What kind of information are you looking for? And how much info do you want? It seems like the agent is the one who knows the market, so I’m not sure why an author is asked to do this.”

A market analysis serves as an advance organizer to a publisher. It helps reveal that there is a market is for the new book, helps describe the potential audience, and helps the publisher think through how they could market and sell the new title. A market analysis is a way of saying, “You once published this title, and my proposed book is similar.”

The author does the legwork to put this together because it’s the author’s job to create the best proposal possible. A good agent will work with you to tweak this section, perhaps recommending other titles or revising the descriptions to best fit each publishing house.

Often writers will come to me with a pitch that says, “Nobody has ever done anything like this before!” That fails to recognize the real world of publishing. Companies discover how to produce and sell certain types of books — for example, Love Inspired knows how to sell historical romance, and the folks at Broadway know how to sell books to professional types and business leaders. Imagine walking up to a nonfiction publisher and saying, “You’ve never done western novels before, so the market is wide open!” It’s stupid — that’s not how publishers think. If you bring them a new project, you need to explain the market for the book, and help them to see how they are going to succeed with it.

Generally a market analysis lists three to eight published books that have had some success, explains each book briefly, and may subtly define how the new, proposed book is unique. But it doesn’t bash any current books on the market, and it should not include any over-the-top comparisons (if I see one more spiritual memoir that says, “This book is exactly like Blue Like Jazz,”I’m going to scream).

What else do you want to know about proposals?

So how do I go about getting good endorsements?

Don’t ask everybody you know. One great endorsement is better than five tepid ones.

Target the best candidates. Think about who the best people would be to endorse your work, and ask them.

Ask people personally. The odds of you getting a good endorsement are much better if you do your own asking, rather than waiting for some publicist or agent to get around to it. (This is why it pays to network.) 

Use your six degrees of separation. You’ll be surprised who you can connect with through your friends, your writing acquaintances, your agent, and your editor. 

Start with a query. Include a short, two-paragraph letter that acknowledges the individual’s busyness, but requests they take a few moments to look over your manuscript and see if they’d be comfortable offering a few words of encouragement to readers.

Politeness counts. If you haven’t figured that out yet, you need to go talk with your mom.

The clearer the instructions, the better the endorsement. If you really want someone to say “the writing is brilliant,” you might gently suggest words to that effect in your letter. If you want them to say you’re the second coming of Mark Twain, include a photo of yourself wearing a white suit and smoking a cigar. The point is, you want to make it easy for the person to help you. Like most writers, a suggestion can speed the process more than a blank sheet of paper. Give the potential endorser some direction. 

The bigger the name, the longer it takes. A good endorsement takes time. You can’t call Bill Clinton and expect him to get you something tomorrow — believe it or not, he’s got other things on his schedule. Get your manuscript done early, get it onto the desk of the person you’re asking, and be patient.

Don’t clutter your proposal with too many endorsements. It starts to look like what it is: hype. A couple of solid lines from a celebrity author or two is sufficient, and will get noticed.

Be creative. The problem with most endorsements is that they don’t stand out — they all can sound the same, which is basically, “I like this book. It’s pretty good.” If you want your endorsements to be meaningful, give people time and direction, and help them create something strong and unique. 

Rely on authors the editors will appreciate, or authors at the houses your approaching.  Publishers love their own authors, so if you’re approaching Simon & Schuster, you may find it most helpful to get a word of support from another S&S author. If you’re looking for an endorsement for your next suspense novel, look to important or influential suspense novelists, or at least crafts people the editors will recognize and respect. 

Never ask an agent to endorse your book. Never. Ever. They’ll screw it up. (“This is a fine book, that I represented, and like all my bestselling authors, this one owes it all to ME! I’m the King of the World!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”)

Years ago, some friends of mine put together a mock book proposal for April Fool’s Day — a collection of all J.I. Packers’ book endorsements. That was during the time when Packer apparently was under some sort of contractual obligation to endorse every book produced in the Free World. It included a bunch of well-written-but-bland generalities, and made for a fun afternoon. Until some humor-impaired editor actually expressed interest in the project. I’m serious. And that particular genius is now an agent. Yikes. (And if you don’t know J.I. Packer, you’re missing out. He’s one of my heroes.) 

I’d love to know what endorsements you like and hate. 

I’ve had a number of questions about book proposals sent to me, so I’d like to take several days to explore creating a great book proposal. Stan wrote to me and asked, “Does it really help a book to have endorsements on it? Would it help my proposal?”

One thing publishing history has taught us is that readers are not stupid. They may get fooled occasionally by great marketing, but they catch on quickly — so yesterday’s collection of neato stories is today’s boring, unsold project. And book buyers have caught on to the fact that a ton of endorsements by people who haven’t actually read your book, in the words of Bogie-as-Rick, “doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” The days of listing 37 endorsement that all say “loved the book” are over. Done. Dead and gone. Departed this life. Assumed room temperature. Today, there are only two types of endorsements that matter.

1. The Celebrity Endorsement. This is where you get Tom Clancy or John Grisham or Brad Pitt or some other notable, attention-getting person to say, “This book moved me deeply” or some such thing. It also includes getting a real doctor to say that your cookbook will help fight cancer, or getting an investment banker to say that your money management book offers a great plan to help readers get out of debt. Locally, it’s the equivalent of having your well-known professional basketball player go on camera and explain that he always buys his cars at Farnsworth Chevrolet. There’s value in getting a recognizable name to endorse your product. I don’t know that it always works with books, but it’s a heck of a lot better than getting your mom or your pastor or your neighbor to say it (“I’ve loved little Chippy’s writing since he was in diapers!”). The problem is that you often find the same people saying the same things — a couple of well-known novelists offering pale praise for the writer’s work. But unless it’s honest, I don’t know that a book endorsement means all that much. And if you’re not done writing, an endorsement of a general concept doesn’t carry much weight at all, unless it comes from an A+ level author who is guaranteeing an endorsement because he or she is already familiar with your work. So while I doubt any publisher ever contracted a book because they were promised a great endorsement, it certainly doesn’t hurt your chances…so long as the endorser is truly a celebrity.

2. The Wet-Your-Pants Endorsement. The only other type of endorsement that matters is the one where someone says, in essence, “THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING BOOK SINCE THE INVENTION OF MOVEABLE TYPE! MY LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME! I GOT SO EXCITED READING IT I WET MY PANTS!” These types of endorsements are often accompanied by a whole slew of exclamation points. It can work, too, since all of us who enjoy books are interested in words that actually made a difference in the life of someone else. The potential weakness with this type of endorsement is that we’ve all been duped into buying really bad books where the author’s mom or best friend or bookie were obviously the ones writing the words. Still, a WYP endorsement can garner you some attention if a potential reader is already holding your book and looking over the back cover.

Those are the only two kinds of endorsements that matter. Having polite words from an unknown person do you no good — with publishers or the reading public. So does an endorsement actually help sell your book? It might help get it noticed — certainly a word from J.K. Rowling about your fine YA novel will make an editor sit up and pay attention to your proposal. It won’t actually SELL your book, but it might make it stand out just a bit. And that’s all you’re really trying to do with your endorsements. And, with that on the table, tomorrow I’ll offer a couple tips for “what makes a good endorsement.”

What’s the best endorsement you’ve ever received?

Danielle wrote to say, “I know there are contests going on at this summer’s conferences. What contest advice can you give us?”

I’ve made my living in publishing for about thirty years now, which means that sometimes I get asked to be a contest judge for a writers’ conference or contest. I don’t generally enjoy it — not because I don’t like participating, but because far too many newer writers have a bit too much confidence in their own work. While I love teaching younger writers to help them improve, I hate having to explain why I ranked one author a “ten” and another author a “two.” In my view, it should be obvious.

Things like voice and theme and clarity and focus stand out in some writers’ works. Their use of words and clarity in point-of-view are crisp and interesting. The characterization is strong, the story holds my interest, and the overall style makes the piece something I want to read. But that’s what a contest judge does — make evaluations of writing, in order to determine which pieces are strong and which are not. I’d encourage you to view a contest as a learning opportunity, rather than simply a competition that is won or lost.

So, in case you’re one of those people who may get discouraged over not winning every trophy in sight, let me offer some thoughts…

1. If you only want to hear good things said about you, buy a round of drinks.

2. If you only want to hear good things said about your writing, show it to your mom.

3. If hearing something critical about your work will crush you, consider a career change. (Okay…maybe that sounds too harsh. But to be a writer is to be a learner — all of us are seeking to improve, and that means all of us have to hear another criticize our work. There’s no getting around it — criticism is an essential part of the writing process. Accept that now.)

4. Judging writing is a criticism business. Judgment is endemic to contests. Get rid of the nice voice in your head telling you that anyone being critical is not being nice. A contest judge who says he or she doesn’t like your work isn’t saying they don’t like YOU — learn to separate yourself from your work, in order to hear and accept good advice.

5. No two judges are alike. Allow for style differences. One might be too sweet, another too acerbic. While I can’t see myself ever writing demeaning comments on a manuscript, I’m also not going to be pouring out undue praise for what generally amounts to beginning writing. Most every judge I’ve spoken with at conferences took their task seriously and offered their honest opinion.

6. If by entering a writing contest you’re hoping for a major critique of your work, you may be disappointed. Generally speaking, if you need a major editorial critique, you need to consider hiring an editor or critique service to provide it. As a judge, I’m given a stack of entries and asked to read and evaluate them against each other in order to find the best of the bunch. It’s a competition. I pick the best and note my reasons for doing so. I try to offer things to help a writer, but my primary task is not to serve as your editor. My primary task is to find the best writing in the contest.

7. And a last thought: Sometimes I’ll see something really awful. If your scene is bad, your dialogue amateurish, or your emotional moment is a clunker, you need to know that. Pointing out flaws will generally help you improve more than praising your fine points. Iron sharpening iron, and all that.

Contests are great learning experiences if you allow them to be. Don’t focus on “winning” — focus on “learning.” Hope this helps.

We’ve been working diligently (translation: “occasionally looking up from my glass of Guinness and my P.G. Wodehouse novel”)  to study the entrants in this year’s Bad Poetry Contest. As usual, it’s tough to pick a winner because, in the immortal words of Mark Twain, “badness is a state of mind.” (Okay, that wasn’t really Mark Twain. I think it was a British rapper who goes by the genuinely stupid moniker “Badness.” But it sounds better if I quote someone literary.)

Anyway, we read through all that badness. We got things like “The Arab Sprummer” and someone named Longbottom talking about holding hands with Shakespeare while the daffodils became “a candy shop for bumblebees.” We even got a rapper offering us this gentle bit o’ badness:

i finna shoot somebody
i finna pull the trigga
and snigga
and turn to my homies and say
hey how you doin
is it gonna rain 

That’s right — there’s no bad rhyme like a rappin’ bad rhyme! But not a winner. Coming in second place (which, as I’m sure you know from watching beauty pageants, is important because if our champion is unable to uphold the Official Standards of Badness, the second place guy has to buy drinks for everyone) is Ben, who offered this total stinker:

A Fruit Soliloquy

by Ben Erlichman

Alas, the moose, she has taken my bananas
And I can hear the sound of the wailing wind no longer.
Whatever shall I do? How can I reclaim
What has been taken from me?
It is as if my very soul cries out
In hopes for some relief, some comfort, 
Some fresh produce to make me regular once again.

I beseech you; a mere kiwi would suffice to fill my needs!
Even a raisin would do more good than harm!
And yet, If I had but one raisin, 
I would surely turn to madness
Because I would have but one raisin––no more, no less.

And so I die here, upon this Neanderthal, 
Whose rugged knapsack bore me some rest throughout my journey.
Alas, I am slain by the evil of the populace
And through the malice of the Dole Fruit company.

Goodbye, goodbye––

––goodbye.
To that we can only say, “Goodbye! And good riddance!”

And our champ — the 2012 Bad Poetry Wiener, who wins a copy of The Lady Gagy Style Bible, goes to Fifi McGruder for a great take on goats as a metaphor for life, so long as the goats are deep and meaningful goats (who bleat, at least in Fifi’s world o’ wackiness). Here’s the champ in all its glory — make sure to stay to the end, so you catch the jump from “thoughtful yet stupid” to “impassioned and even stupider.” Fifi, we salute you as our champion!

To waddle with the gooses,

One must wade with the whales.

To climb Mount Nevus,

One must flourish with the goats.

Ancient beasts of knowledge,

All-knowing bearers of the wisdom of the world.

Hope. Anger. Love.

Written in the soles of the mountain-dwellers themselves,

Stringent in their hairs.

Hollow lives of a hollow world.

Love love and happiness

Overtaking the masses

Overtaking the soul,

… in the breath of the hurdling beasts

… in their smacking hoofs and limber limbs.

Holiness complete on the mountain.

Contemplation complete in the whim.

Ascension assured in the gaiety.

Bleat. Bleat now! Before the day is done. Before the dawn
turns to gray. It is not too late. Huddled masses. Hoofs. Hollers. Hope. Bleat
before the clock strikes one. The tolling bell of ending desire. Doom.

Doom of the bleating ones.

It comes.

Farewell.

Now THAT, my friends, is bad poetry. Thanks to everyone who participated! Fifi, Lady Gaga is on her way. Let me know if her meat dress is made of goat.