{"id":69,"date":"2008-07-31T19:43:37","date_gmt":"2008-08-01T00:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mojo\/?p=69"},"modified":"2025-08-01T12:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T17:39:10","slug":"caution-warning-label-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/caution-warning-label-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Caution: warning label ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"
MEMORANDUM<\/strong><\/div>\n

TO:<\/strong> LDS Fiction Publishers
\nFROM:<\/strong> MoJo
\nRE:<\/strong> Warning labels<\/p>\n

Lest you think I was kidding about that warning label thingie I mentioned<\/a> only about 16 times across various blogs over the weekend\u2019s little dustup<\/a>, I bring you a way to justify such a practice to yourself: Sales.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Every time I go to Samhain Publishing<\/a> to molest my credit card, each book\u2019s description is tagged with a little warning label to warn of situations with which some readers might be uncomfortable. For instance, I\u2019m not really into spanking (morally opposed to pain, especially after the birth of Tax Deduction #2), so I would most likely avoid a book with that warning unless the blurb got me.<\/p>\n

But what if the blurb didn\u2019t interest me enough? I\u2019ve bought several books whose blurb made me yawn, but the warning was so funny I bought it anyway. You know what? Books I\u2019ve bought on the basis of the cleverness of the warning have not disappointed me yet. I don\u2019t know who writes the warnings (or the blurbs, either, for that fact), but bring on teh funny.<\/p>\n

This is from Jenna Bayley-Burke\u2019s Par for the Course<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Warning. Fore! This title contains explicit sex, and a love story hazardous to your hankie supply. Oh, and exploding toads.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"CoverI have no interest in golf, but even if the blurb didn\u2019t get me, I\u2019d buy it on the basis of exploding toads. What is not funny about exploding toads? (Oh, also? Love the girl\u2019s outfit. The Catholic schoolgirl routine is one of my\u2014 Ahem. Never mind.)<\/p>\n

So based on my credit card statement about six months ago, I decided to write a warning label for The Proviso<\/em> (ETA 2025-07-26):<\/p>\n

CAUTION:<\/strong> This title contains the jarring and bizarre juxtaposition of explicit sex and overt religion. As an added bonus, there’s quite a bit of libertarian\/objectivist philosophy, politics, money, and cursing-the really bad kind. I also threw in a smattering of violence, nude art, the criminal use of mint chocolate chip ice cream, rampant armchair psychoanalysis, a slew of shoulda-coulda- wouldas, and a cat named Dog.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is to save you all from yourselves and protect you from my wickedness (not to mention to tickle my funny bone). I will not have \u201ctricked\u201d you. I will not have tempted you to \u201cexplore beneath every evil unturned stone\u201d (unless, of course, you\u2019re one of those<\/em> Mormons). I will not be a \u201cwolf\u201d and I will not be \u201cchipping away from within.\u201d If you pick up this book and you\u2019re offended, you have no one to blame but yourself.<\/p>\n

No toads were exploded in the creation of this blog post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEMORANDUM TO: LDS Fiction Publishers FROM: MoJo RE: Warning labels Lest you think I was kidding about that warning label thingie I mentioned only about 16 times across various blogs over the weekend\u2019s little dustup, I bring you a way to justify such a practice to yourself: Sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[546,424],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17317,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions\/17317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}