All My Friends Are Dead

I write fairly lengthy reviews of books, especially if I like them. This will be an exception.

In All My Friends Are Dead, by Avery Monsen and Jory John, the cartoons and captions speak for themselves - you can read the first few pages here. The dinosaur's compatriots may all have died, but the sock has lost his only friend. And the tree is painfully aware of his future as an end table. Though he's probably lucky compared to the cassette tape, who has no future.

Each character, animal, plant or object has some bleak but amusing awareness of its own impending doom or predicament - with the sole exception of Death, who happily goes about doing his job. This book is cynical and depressing and hilarious at once. And I'd love to see a sequel where one bacterium alone on a vast Petri plate is saying, "All my friends were susceptible."

Night: dark & stormy

In the Bulwer-Lytton contest – named after the originator of the “It was a dark and stormy night” line – writers compete to devise the worst opening line for a novel. These are usually fun to read, but many of them are so long that by the time I get to the end I’ve started to forget the beginning.

Here’s an example from It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The Final Conflict.

While the luminescent moon swelled in the sky like the bloated belly of a tuna, Michael, sitting on the deck of his large yacht, stared at the rolling waves and remembered the last time he had seen Greta, her lacy pink dress besmirched with a blob of chocolate ice cream, her black patent leather shoes still shiny, as he made a tearful farewell and sold her for medical experiments to the university’s primate institute.

Kelly J. Messinger

The premise is funny, but the line is too… constructed. The idea behind it – that what we think is a little girl is actually an ape – should be able to stand without the deliberately awful simile at the start. That way the sentence could be read in a single breath, too.

Enter the Lyttle Lytton contest.

In this contest, which has run for ten years now, opening lines not only have to be short but the humor has to appear unintentional. Therefore, no puns or attempts to increase the atrocity of the writing with ghastly figures of speech. The apparent intention of the lines must be serious, but their end result has to be comedy.

The contest has proven popular enough to inspire a sub-category – worst last lines – and it’s just fun to read because the entries are so short and pithy.

Bob is sad. :(

Mozell Gibbons

Brevity is the soul of wit, as it turns out. And try imagining what kind of novel might follow; that’s when you scare yourself. From the same year:

Because they had not repented, the angel stabbed the unrepentant couple thirteen times, with its sword.

Graham Swanson

This is my favorite:

His eyes were brown, although you wouldn't know it just by looking.

Dan Shiovitz, quoting Paul Panks

And although this would be from a fanfic, it’s well worth quoting.

MacGyver had grown old.

Mathias Frank

As the host of the contest said, “I like the solemnity of that one. Angus MacGyver, lion in winter. Making radios out of denture adhesive and jars of Metamucil.”

Enjoy!

Five of the best from POD-dy Mouth

The blog POD-dy Mouth was started by a commercially published writer to see if there were any gems amid the reams of print-on-demand titles. She quit after about two years, but in that time she not only discovered some great books but had some very informative posts about the industry.

Oh, and hilarious discoveries of What Not To Write. Dinner first, then dessert.

1. The Making of a POD Book

This is an excellent guest post from Christopher Meeks, author of The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea, which has an intriguing title and a cover to match. Anyone wanting to self-publish a collection of short stories will benefit from reading this.

He also wrote about how he helped design a cover for his second book.

2. Cover Design

Susan Wenger, a book editor/designer at Wheatmark, discusses what writers can do to improve their cover art – especially if they’re creating it themselves.

3. More on cover art – including bloopers.

Perhaps my favorite--and quite possibly the nadir--was a book (that I cannot bear to publicize) about a satanic force that rises to rule the world. And on the cover was a huge image surely intended to be a pentagram.

It was a Star of David.

4. Opening paragraphs – and sentences – that don’t work

"Get your hands up!!!!!!!!" cried Milky Frothbean.

The rain, wet, cold, misty and murky, fell on our saturated, pruned skin, had us running the cold, hard pavement with such animated and excited fury, that we fell in laughter when we returned to the warm, dry fire.

Everyday [sic] was like Monday for Trudy Goldman, except Tuesday, which always felt like Tuesday to her. I don't know, you'd have to ask her why. But Monday, different story. She preferred Fridays over any day of the week, which was strange since it felt like Monday. To her, I mean.

Michael Swank would of [sic] saved Marshall Swank if he could of [sic].

They called her Labia.

5. Random notes to the authors of seven POD books

I'm not sure what this means: "He was everywhere and nowhere all at once; he smelled like tuna."

Uh, there is no September 31st.

The sun was blinding, her love was blinding, her hope was blinding, her will was blinding, her passion was blinding. I hope she saved some money for cataract surgery.

FYI - Julius Caesar did not invent the caesar salad.

Mickey Mack McKeldinroy. Not necessarily my top choice for a name for your protagonist--considering he's Italian.

I want to be very clear about something: Gynecological exams are never sexy. Absolutely never. Understand me: never. If only you had a cervix.

Five tales from the slush pile

Interesting things or practices found in the slush pile…

1. Beer

Funny objects? glitter, chocolate, and our favorite, a six pack of beer.

Link

2. A picture of the writer with a gun

You… get distracted by prisoners who think it a good idea to include a picture of themselves with a gun pointed at the viewer (true story).

Link

3. Paper salvage

The bottom two-thirds of the last page cut off with scissors because that’s where the submission ended.

Link

4. Viruses

Michele sent a polite rejection note via e-mail to someone... He sent it back to her with a computer virus attached.

Link

5. False claims

I received a story with a polite cover letter asking me to respond as soon as possible because of the special circumstances involved: the writer was a prisoner and to be executed in less than a week.

Link

Turns out he was a prisoner, but when the editor wrote back quickly to say that she would have liked something different (to be published posthumously of course), the prisoner had a miraculous stay of execution.

What’s the worst thing you’ve written?

When I was thirteen or fourteen, I wrote a short scene where the hero of my story met the heroine for the first time and fell in love at first sight.

That sight, however, was like a glimpse into a kaleidoscope while on an acid trip. He looked into her eyes and saw fireworks, rainbows, butterflies, dolphins and lionesses, in that order. Each vision melted into the next and all of it was lovingly described with special attention to the colors and shapes. Looking back on it, I’m surprised he didn’t see astronomical phenomena and Jimmy Hoffa in there as well. I wish I’d saved my notebooks from that time, because they’d crack me up.

I can’t even think of any genre or type of story in which such a scene would have fitted, not even a parody, because it was so deadly serious and presented as part of the attraction he had for her. There was no salvaging that scene, in other words.

What’s the worst thing you’ve written?

Are you a writer?

1. Spies bug your house and hear the tapatapatapatap of a keyboard. What could all this activity be?

a. Work, e.g. writing up expense reports.
b. Social interaction, e.g. emails.
c. The creation of new worlds and new people and the unfolding of all their stories.

2. The movie started out with a good idea that fell flat for want of characters, plot, etc. You walk out thinking,

a. What a waste of money! I wonder if there’s any way I could get a refund.
b. What a waste of time! Before I watch another film I’ll read all the reviews.
c. What a waste of potential! If the heroine was a member of the secret organization before her accident – no, better yet, if she founded the organization – she’d be so much more proactive. And it should be a near-fatal accident. And set on Mars! Wow, this could make a great story...

3. As your first-ever manuscript garners rejection after rejection, you start to feel tired and dispirited. How do you recuperate?

a. By buying yourself something nice.
b. By taking a day off to do something relaxing, like going to a spa or a museum.
c. By starting another story, one where the plucky protagonist faced even worse obstacles and triumphed. This one’s going to be even better, you just know it!

4. What does the word vanity make you think of?

a. Ecclesiastes 1:2.
b. A dressing-table.
c. PublishAmerica.

5. What external motivation does a writer need to come up with a good manuscript?

a. A hefty advance check.
b. Booze, and lots thereof.
c. Nothing. Drop a writer on a desert island and he’ll scratch stories onto coconut leaves. Probably send out query letters in corked bottles too.

Was your score mostly c’s? Then close this window and get back to your writing. Leaving a comment first is fine, though. :)

Exaggerated descriptions

I came across an unusual description of a heroine from a fantasy novel called Silk and Steel published in 1992 (by a real publisher). Here's a small excerpt.

Her face had the fragrance of a gibbous moon. The scent of fresh snow. Her eyes were dark birds in fresh snow. They were the birds' shadows, they were mirrors; they were the legends on old charts. They were antique armor and the tears of dragons.

“Wubbuh?” I said after reading the entire thing. Fortunately I recovered some coherency and settled down to write about this.

There are two interesting things about that description. The first is that a few of the metaphors do work – eyes can be compared to dark birds in fresh snow, and I like the description of hair as “the cowl of… the cobra” (the alliteration is good as well).

The second thing is that occasional fragments of the stream-of-consciousness are evocative, especially “the hot, careful winds that stroke the veldt, the winds that taste of clay and seed and blood; the winds that dreamed of tawny, lean animals”. Except for the winds being described as “careful” and further anthropomorphized by their dreaming of animals, this isn’t bad. I like poetry like e. e. cummings’s, which uses elaborate figures of speech that aren’t easy to grasp at first, so this aspect of the description was somewhat similar.

There are a few well-expressed images, in other words. But they’re drowned in a great sea of prose so purple as to be ultraviolet, and with the thousand other descriptions and comparisons, they go more or less unnoticed.

And the overall effect doesn’t work either. I think the writer was trying to express how everything the heroine was – not just beautiful but so magnificent that she combines the best features of everything in the known world. But it doesn’t work. It’s too much for any reader to process, much less believe in. If you grasp at everything, you achieve nothing.

Someone compared this to the Song of Solomon, but I think that does the Song of Solomon a disservice. Although that book uses a lot of figures of speech, they have a unifying theme – they’re all objects or creatures or plants that ancient nomadic or farming people would have found beautiful or sweet.

The same can’t be said for the descriptions in Silk and Steel. There’s no common thread to them. They jump from snails to dragon tears to semaphore, spinning like a mad merry-go-round. And ultimately they just come off as self-indulgent. A stream-of-consciousness has to be just as much under the writer’s control and directed to a purpose as any other part of the story.

And a description has to leave an image of some kind in the writer’s mind (not a thousand different and self-contradictory images). It reminds me of a review I read, by James Blish writing as William Atheling, Jr. Such reviews were sometimes snarky and always informative. Here’s the quote* he commented on.

She was love. She was first love, old love, all love. She was doubt and ache and hope, fusing now into fury, because she was love.

Blish wrote that comparisons work when they’re abstract-to-concrete – for instance, “Patience on a monument, smiling at grief”. That takes something difficult to imagine in a material way, the concept of patience, and makes it into a sculpture, which is easier to grasp.

But concrete-to-abstract doesn’t work so well. Try to imagine a person as love. Now try to imagine them as doubt, ache, hope and fury as well. At best, such a description might make readers believe it is grand and important somehow, but it won’t create a memorable and clear image of a character in their minds. At worst it will make them laugh.

Which is not such a bad thing, of course, unless you’re the writer.



*Not exact, since I don’t have the publication with me, but I can more or less remember it.

Five bizarre book titles

1. Romance Goes Tenting

Link

This is a Mills & Boon novel published in 1956, when I’m sure “tenting” meant something sweet and innocent.


2. How Green were the Nazis?

Link

Uh… they recycled human skin into lampshades?


3. Death by Ploot Ploot

Link

I’ll just quote one of the reviews: “Ploot Ploot has no plot plot.”


4. Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, learns to say “No” to Drugs

Link

What an inspiring heroin. I mean heroine.


5. How to make love while conscious

Link

What’s the sequel, How to make love while alive?

Five similes which fail

With some books, even when I don’t remember the stories, unfortunate figures of speech in them stand out. A few of those are paraphrased or quoted here, and the first is from a Lord of the Rings fanfic.

1. Sauron’s fury had been building up inside him, like bread rising in an oven.

The second is from a romance where the hero and heroine kiss for the first time.

2. The corner of her mouth was as soft and tender as a child’s.

Ew. Another first kiss.

3. Their tongues touched like small creatures meeting for the first time.

That made me think of two naked mole rats stopping to rub whiskers in a tunnel underground. On to the later stages of lovemaking.

4.The folds of her sex blossomed like a wet lily. --> Link

A figure of speech this specific will make most readers imagine it too well, leading to a mental image of the heroine with a horticultural addition to her anatomy. Finally, for the fantasy fans…

5. The white mist rushed towards her like steam blown from the cheeks of an ice monster. --> Link

I have no idea why an ice monster would blow steam. Wouldn’t that cause the monster to melt?

The lightbulb game

A fun thing I tried with different races from my stories. How many _____ does it take to change a light bulb?

Glores

A whole flag, but they’ll get bored halfway and start juggling the bulb. Then they’ll quarrel about who gets to keep the pieces.

Argesi

Just one. She shoots all the Glores from a safe distance, steps over the bodies, changes the bulb and requests payment.

Weaponbearers

Three: one to change the bulb, one to reflect that in the past, they were elite bodyguards rather than changers of bulbs, and one to divide the metal parts of the old bulb equally for them all to eat.

Watchers

Only one, as long as he has a monkey familiar to do it.

Liquari

None; they can see in the dark.

Lightbringers

None; they can glow in the dark.

Dracolytes

Two: one to thank the dragons for giving them the light of truth that will never fail, not even in their darkest hours, and one to order a slave to change the bulb.

Fairfellans

One; she reverses time to the point where the bulb was still lit, sits back and waits for admiration.

Iternans (Outward Way)

One; he uses telekinesis to remove the old bulb and fit the new one in.

Iternans (Inward Way)

One; he used psychic coercion to make the first Iternan change the bulb.

How many of the races or species in your work would it take to change a lightbulb?

Five oddities in sex scenes

This isn’t necessarily a list of things I don’t want to read again, but it’s definitely a list of things that confuse me just a bit.

1. Lack of thought about pregnancy

Probably the best example of this is The Thorn Birds, where Meggie and Father Ralph (a Catholic priest) finally consummate their love and spend some time on a tropical island. That was fine, but Ralph doesn’t ever consider precautions. I suppose that was in line with his religion but if he was going to break a vow of celibacy, he might as well have used some form of protection too.

Needless to say, the inevitable happened. But when he discovered, years later, that Meggie had a child, he never once stopped to do the math. I have no idea why it didn’t occur to him that he could be a Father in more ways than one. He wasn’t that innocent.

2. Religion at the bedroom door

Speaking of religion, I’ve read two romance novels which featured characters who went to church each Sunday… but who had premarital sex anyway. I know some (or many) people reconcile the two, but I would have liked to see the reasoning behind how they did so.

3. Flat male nipples

Or “hard male nubs”. I think this is due to a fear of men’s nipples appearing too feminine if they don’t have the “male” adjective attached like a warning flag.

4. Quick-wick sheets

That’s the only explanation for the lack of any damp patches. This is even more strange if the woman has lost her virginity and then gone blithely to sleep on the same damp, stained bed linens. I think a man who stripped the bed and put clean dry sheets on before bundling me back into it would be a keeper, but maybe that’s just me.

5. Prettification of oral sex

The woman’s genitalia smell or taste like something dainty and aesthetic, like flowers. Unless she’s douched recently, this doesn’t seem likely. I’ve even read about heroines who taste like apples and honey, which make it sound as though they’ve got a picnic basket down there.

Five more things I don't want to see in sex scenes

1. The named member.

Probably the only novel where this worked for me was Lady Chatterley’s Lover. A few years ago, I picked up a romance where the hero named his penis Ambrose, and I kept laughing during the sex scenes when he referred to whatever Ambrose was doing. Ambrose isn’t what you name a rampant manhood, it’s what you name an elderly British professor.

2. The voyeuristic friend.

I’ve only come across this buzzkill once, in the film La Reine Margot, and the sex scenes between the titular character and her homme du jour were made even less arousing by Margot’s maid listening outside the door (with Margot’s knowledge). It was almost a menage a trois.

3. The mysterious cream.

I’ve read a couple of historical romances now where the first sexual encounter was less than consensual, and to make it a little easier on the heroine, the hero resorted to the use of “cream”. No indication what this 17th century version of K-Y Jelly is made of, or why the hero keeps a supply close at hand. Perhaps he’s accustomed to women who don’t lube naturally in his presence?

4. The animal impression.

Sex talk can be funny, it can be erotic and it can be touching. But when the characters discuss their lovemaking in terms of sheep mating – “Will you mount me like the ram mounts his ewe?” – and when the hero says “Baaa!” at the climax, I feel as though I’m reading about some woolly subculture.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

5. The clueless innocent.

I don’t mind the heroine being a virgin, or being inexperienced when it comes to sex, especially in a historical. But unless she’s grown up in a convent, I’d rather not read dialogue like this.

"What is this thing?"
"My cock."
"Is it attached to your body?"
"Yes. We're built differently."
"What is it for?"

This level of naivety just isn’t sexy. And it makes me want to say, “Now point to the dolly to show us where the bad man touched you.”

Five things I don’t want to see in sex scenes

1. The word “treacherous”.

I’m fine with what are called “forced seductions”, but I don’t want to read something like, Her treacherous body responded to him. That word always makes me think of beheadings in the Tower of London.

2. The giant member.

This feature took pride of place in two novels I’ve read so far, and in both cases it achieved the same effect – the hero was reduced to a walking oversized body part. I don’t think it’s possible to give the hero such an attribute without amusing the readers or having him defined by it in some way, especially if the story goes into detail about how his previous girlfriends weren’t able to accommodate him.

3. The orgasm smile.

Does anyone smile during an orgasm? After it, I can buy, but I’ve read more than one book where the characters smile at the climax, perhaps because it’s not pretty to have them making contorted grimaces instead. There’s even one where the heroine’s face becomes like an angel’s at the crucial moment. Maybe she looked like an angel having an orgasm.

4. The unexpected virgin.

This is where the hero discovers, much to his surprise and delight, that the tamper-proof packaging on his little aspirin bottle is intact.

5. The heroine’s skull.

The tension built up to the charged, emotional first kiss. The hero and the heroine held each other and the kiss grew passionate. Then the hero slid his hand into her hair, “on her skull”.

Suddenly the kiss was over for me, and the hero was doing the “Alas, poor Yorick” scene from Hamlet instead.

Five ways to tell that your child...

...will grow up to be a fantasy writer.

1. When you took her for swimming lessons, she named the three parts of the pool Seafarer's Rest (the shallow end), Mermaid Cove and Shark Bay (the deep end).

2. After watching A Little Princess, she rewrote the end so Sara discovered a portal to another world in the attic, entered it and learned real magic in the other world to defend herself from Miss Minchin (i.e. the story became A Little Sorceress).

3. In her geography book, she did to maps of the world what Piers Anthony did to Florida.

4. Asked for an essay on what he did over the summer, he wrote of how his family had discovered and tamed a mammoth, which unfortunately ran away just before school began.

5. He offered to write a sequel from the mammoth's point of view.

I've actually done most of these, too.

Five worst said-bookisms

I once read that the term "said-bookism" comes from little books containing lists of synonyms for the verb "said". While "said" often comes off as plain and simple beside exotic euphemisms, in general it's a better choice. Nearly invisible to the reading eye, it focuses attention on the dialogue rather than how it's delivered. It's also far less likely to have as many amusing connotations as some of the said-bookisms in this list...

1. barked

“What the hell are you doing?” Luc barked.

Shayla Black, Decadent

The word "barked" makes me think of the character doing a dog impression. Unfortunately, the above line is from a sex scene, which is really the last place I needed to imagine a dog.

2. husked

I don't have an example for this, but it enjoyed a brief honeymoon in romance novels from the eighties. It's probably meant to indicate that the hero (or more rarely, the heroine) is speaking in a husky voice, but it's more often applied to ears of corn. Thank goodness it didn't catch on; otherwise the next logical said-bookism might have been "he hoarsed" or "he throated".

3. whinnied

"Oh, Lucius Cornelius!" whinnied Gaius Lusius.

Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

Gaius Lusius is supposed to be a stereotypical gay man in a very heterosexual army (don't ask, don't tell), but the narrative was doing more than a good enough job of portraying him as such before this speech tag. I'm not even sure how one whinnies dialogue. It makes me wonder if Black Beauty ever whinnied anything.

4. ejaculated

"Snape!" ejaculated Slughorn.

J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Ah, the word that launched at least one piece of slash art I'm aware of - and no, I didn't save the link.

5. half-whispered

I read this in a review by James Blish (writing as William Atheling, Jr.). The word "whispered" is one of the few that I wouldn't hesitate to use instead of "said", but I'm not sure whether a half-whisper is an even more quiet whisper or if it's describing a voice that begins quietly but rises to a normal pitch at the end. What's the other half of a half-whisper, anyway? I feel as though I need algebra to work it out.

Five funny things non-writers say...

...when they hear that you're a writer.

1. "I have an idea for a novel. You could write it and we could split the profits."

I want to reply, "So you'll supply the idea and I'll supply the characters, plot, background, setting, style, research, editing, submission and revision? What kind of split do you have in mind?"

2. "I have an idea for a book about {insert favorite nonfiction topic here}."

This one just baffles me. A coworker once saw me editing the first draft of Dracolytes, asked if I was a writer and said, "You should write a book on Type II diabetes." The only connection I could see between Dracolytes and diabetes is that both words start with a D and end with an S. Other than that, I have no idea what made her think I might be qualified to write such a book, or that I would want to do so.

3. "I'd like to write a book. Could you help me?"

Yes, I can smack you until the craziness goes away.

Seriously, if someone asked me this, I'd describe what getting accurate criticism of a first draft feels like, and what the fiftieth form rejection can do to you. I'd talk about the time it takes to complete a manuscript, and the even longer time it takes to query and submit the thing. I'd go into detail about the scam sharks in the writing waters. I'd wind this up by cautioning the would-be writer that there is NO guarantee of publication and NO guarantee of mondo money either.

Then, if he or she still liked the idea of writing a book, I'd suggest some good books and websites on the subject.

Then, once he or she actually started writing the book, we could talk.

4. "Where do you get your ideas from?"

eBay.

I read once that a writer, tired of this question, started telling people that he subscribed to a weekly magazine that provided him with ideas, but it was for published authors only.

5. "You know, I've always wanted to be a writer."

People don't normally say, "You know, I've always wanted to be a stockbroker" or "I've always wanted to be a neurosurgeon" to someone they've just met. Writing is different, though. Since nearly everyone writes (emails, letters to the editor, schoolwork, proposals, etc.), many people believe it's just one small step from there to the aura of authorhood. People know that you need to have studied for years to be a scientist or gone through rigorous training to be a firefighter, but being a writer is much more attainable. And glamorous. Sometimes, the implication is that the person could have been a writer if they had had just ten minutes' more time in the day.

As someone once said, writers write. Wannabe writers wanna write.

Diary of a slush pile reader

In my salad days, when I was green in judgment and cold in blood, I thought it would be fun to read slush. I could read all day, but I could put down any manuscript which didn't hold my interest and there would be no need to critique them. Plus, every now and then I'd find a ruby in the rubble. What wasn't to like?

Then I read Slushkiller, Teresa Nielsen Hayden's Making Light article that mentions the proportion of nonsaleable to saleable manuscripts in the slush pile - 99 to 1 - and makes it clear that a significant portion of the 99 are, shall we say, not an easy read. I still didn't think it would be that bad, though whenever I read about editors who got proposals for plagiarized work or bizarre stories like a garbage can lid's love affair with an empty box, yes, I could see how that might make someone not eager to dive into the slush pile headfirst. It also couldn't be easy to read sad or hopeful cover letters.

But that wasn't the worst thing that could happen to a slush pile reader, as I realized when I read this hilarious article, Confessions of a Slush Pile Reader. That would be the writer who hung around in the lobby, waiting for the editorial assistant (OK, he only wanted to get his manuscript back, but still, that's a bit unnerving). Then there were the people who called, asking for the editor. The assistant's solution to this is brilliant. And then there's the great Kilimanjaro of the slush pile itself - not just a mound of manuscripts, but the repository of dreams (and nightmares). I thought that sending bribes or manuscripts printed on colored paper was the weirdest thing people could do. Note to self : people will always surprise you that way.

I don't think I'll ever want to read slush again. But I'd love to read more great articles about other people reading it.

What kind of publisher do you need?

Here's a quick and easy checklist to help people decide whether it's commercial or vanity publishing that they need.

I have written a book, and... (please tick all that apply)

___ I want it stocked in bookstores nationwide (and overseas).
___ I want a good advance and/or royalties for it (write for love, but publish for profit).
___ I want a professional editor to look over the manuscript and a professional artist to design the cover.
___ I am prepared to wait as long as is necessary to achieve this.
___ I will write another book while I wait.
___ I will accept critical feedback and correct any problems in the manuscript.

If these apply, then commercial publishing is for you. Either a trade publisher or a reputable small press should be fine.

___ I don't want to go through the stress of rejection letters and research.
___ I only want my manuscript printed up in book form.
___ I want a few copies for my family and friends.
___ I plan to sell the book in a certain specific context - for instance, from the back of the hall after I have given a lecture or presentation.
___ I know the manuscript is unlikely to be accepted by a commercial publisher, perhaps because its appeal is very limited, such as a family history.

If you ticked these, then vanity publishing should work for you. Consider Lulu, which provides better books than a copy shop would. Covers can be autogenerated or put together by the author, and you can purchase as many or as few books as you need. If you don't buy any of the extra features, like an ISBN, you won't have to pay anything, and Lulu will take a percentage of each sale.

___ I don't want the stigma of paying to be published, but I am prepared to spend money on the copyright, promotion and bulk purchases of my book.
___ I want to think of myself as a Published Author.
___ I would rather be published badly than not published at all.
___ I want it published soon.
___ I don't plan on writing another or having a career in writing.
___ I believe that editing, advertising and sales should be the responsibility of the author, not the publisher.
___ I don't want anyone suggesting any changes to my work.
___ I want it published very soon.
___ I believe that reputable agents only accept clients whom they meet in person.
___ I believe that one dollar is a fair price for the rights of first publication of my manuscript.
___ I believe that commercial publishers only publish books by celebrities and bestselling authors.
___ I believe that having a book on Amazon qualifies as distribution.
___ I don't want a publication credit that will be recognized by the industry.
___ I want it published NOW.
___ I am not a writer.

If these apply to you, I know this great company in Frederick, Maryland, which should be a perfect fit...