Novel

There’s that moment when an email lands in your inbox and the subject line alone tells you: someone is after your money, your time, and your patience. Most people would hit delete. Peter Radley, however, replied. To every single one.

This is how The Goat Strategy was born — a satirical, literary, and at times brutally honest collection of exchanges from the shadowy world of book marketing. Unexpected punchlines, replies written in the styles of classic authors — including Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Franz Kafka, Gabriel García Márquez, and Ernest Hemingway. And an author who dissects his own profession with surgical precision — while making sure the goats get their share of the spotlight.

"If I’d known what would come out of that very first reply
— I’d have written it much sooner."
— Kate Marlowe, editor

This book is both humorous and revealing: a funhouse mirror for anyone who’s ever believed the big promises, and a lifeline for those who still believe in literature.


GET THE BOOK HERE:


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Sample

Here’s an excerpt from the book. We’ll show you what it’s like when Raymond Chandler’s hero, the burned-out detective Philip Marlowe, answers a book whisperer.




And why “Goat Strategy”? Here’s why:

Dear Helena,
So far, the most effective promotion has been writing quotes from the book in bright red nail polish on the sides of snow-white mountain goats, then releasing them near busy shopping malls.
It draws attention. And the goats seem to enjoy the drama.
If you have a similarly impactful idea, we’d love to hear it.
Warm regards,
Peter Radley
P.S. We briefly considered skywriting, but the goats tested better with focus groups.

Who’s Who in the Goat Universe?

Most of this book’s chapter titles are based on, or inspired by, famous works of literature. Here, we reveal where those quotes and adaptations come from — if only to make sure no one accuses me of theft, except perhaps of the warm, loving kind.


  • Portrait of Dorian Radley
    Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray
  • The Adventures of Huckleradley Finn
    Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  • Before the Flaw
    Franz Kafka: Before the Law
  • Notes of a Dirty Old Whisperer
    Charles Bukowski: Notes of a Dirty Old Man
  • Mailbox-Five
    Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five
  • The Call of Radley
    H. P. Lovecraft: The Call of Cthulhu
  • The Book Badger
    Robert Ruark: The Honey Badger
  • The Trolls in the Rue Morgue
    Edgar Allan Poe: The Murders in the Rue Morgue
  • Waiting for Tina
    Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
  • The Turn of the Mail
    Henry James: The Turn of the Screw
  • East of Reason
    John Steinbeck: East of Eden
  • Chamber Prose
    James Joyce: Chamber Music
  • One Letter to Rule Them All
    J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings
  • The Queen’s Novel
    Alexandre Dumas: The Queen’s Necklace
  • In Macondo It Trolls
    Gabriel García Márquez: In Macondo It Rains
  • The Short Goodbye
    Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye
  • The Bookmaster is Watching
    George Orwell: 1984
  • Resistance, Rebellion, and Books
    Albert Camus: Resistance, Rebellion, and Death
  • Radley’s Room
    Virginia Woolf: Jacob’s Room
  • Foundation and Amazon
    Isaac Asimov: Foundation and Empire
  • The Bald Marketer
    Eugène Ionesco: The Bald Soprano
  • Fear and Loathing on Amazon
    Hunter S. Thompson: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
  • For Whom the Bell Trolls
    Ernest Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls