500k/MO!! as EPIC-POET! by Vincent “Vinnie The Weasel” Vulpikonek - Introduction by Mister C.N. Sumbvert (Mentor-Helpmeet-Editor-At-Largess™) - with Chris Sumberg (side-kick, gofer)
- Fiction Fans
- Jan 14
- 17 min read
Episode 221
Release Date: Jan 14, 2026
Your hosts discuss "500k/MO!! as EPIC-POET! by Vincent “Vinnie The Weasel” Vulpikonek - Introduction by Mister C.N. Sumbvert (Mentor-Helpmeet-Editor-At-Largess™)" by Chris Sumberg, a satirical take on those writing advice books (you know the kind). They discuss the intentionally trying narrative voice and whether or not non-writers will enjoy it, and try their very best to not just repeat all of the hilariously bad advice from each chapter.
Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:
- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Episode Transcript*
*this transcript is generated by Descript, please excuse the mess.
Lilly: 0:04
Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily.
Sara: 0:10
I'm Sarah, and today we will be discussing uh, hold on. This is a very, very long title, 500 K per month as Epic poet by Vincent Vinny, the Weasel Volko Introduction by Mr. Cn Subvert. Mentor helped meet editor at larges t with Chris Berg, sidekick Gopher written by Chris Berg.
Lilly: 0:34
I think it's largest s tm. You might have missed the M when you
Sara: 0:38
I, I I did not write it out. I copied it from the Barnes and Noble listing.
Lilly: 0:44
No Barnes and Noble. Well, my, the cover on my ebook has the like TM symbol.
Sara: 0:51
I mean, I. Would believe that it is supposed to be tm and that the weasel did not did not write things like correctly because that is part of the joke.
Lilly: 1:04
Very fair. I, okay, well we can't get into that.
Sara: 1:07
No.
Lilly: 1:08
There's a lot to say about this book,
Sara: 1:10
Yes.
Lilly: 1:10
first, what is something great that happened recently?
Sara: 1:13
Something great that happened recently. I don't really have a good answer for this week.
Lilly: 1:17
Honestly, mine is that the week is over.
Sara: 1:19
yeah, that was, that was gonna be mine too, I think.
Lilly: 1:23
We're recording on the weekend, which is unusual because about on Wednesday when we usually record, I was like, I fucking can't.
Sara: 1:33
was just that kind of
Lilly: 1:34
Yeah. But it's behind us now. It's Saturday. The sun is nowhere to be seen, but is shining in my heart, so we'll take it.
Sara: 1:45
is shining in California
Lilly: 1:47
Oh, there you go. It feels sunny because I don't have to do jack shit today
Sara: 1:52
except this podcast.
Lilly: 1:54
and also other things, but you know, it's not work so it doesn't count. So that's my good thing. Time continues on and this too shall pass. What are you drinking today?
Sara: 2:05
I have a green tea from Fortnam and Mason. It is called G and t. It is green tea with juniper and a hint of cucumber.
Lilly: 2:15
Ooh, interesting.
Sara: 2:17
It is actually quite nice. I
Lilly: 2:20
Like I can,
Sara: 2:21
It doesn't taste like a gin and tonic at
Lilly: 2:24
well, sure.
Sara: 2:25
but
Lilly: 2:26
Well, I am drinking an herbal tea called Winter Spice. It is a peppermint, ginger, and chamomile, and then a long list of other things. But those are the main ones.
Sara: 2:38
that sounds nice.
Lilly: 2:39
It also has a little bit of stevia in the like tea part, so it's sweet. Without having to add anything, which I like. I know you don't,
Sara: 2:47
I was gonna say that sounds less nice, but that is my personal tea taste.
Lilly: 2:52
but it's warm and cozy.
Sara: 2:56
Delightful.
Lilly: 2:57
Have you read anything non podcast related recently?
Sara: 3:02
Read a lot of fan fiction but I have not read any books besides this one, which we are going to discuss at length in just a couple of minutes.
Lilly: 3:11
Same. I had to read this book in very small chunks.
Sara: 3:17
Yes, the narrative voice is a lot. I struggled with it. Not gonna lie. Like it's very intentional, but also it's very intentionally annoying.
Lilly: 3:33
It's part of the joke. So the fact that it was infuriating was like, good job, sun. Sorry, some berg, some bur, some vert is the fake editor.
Sara: 3:43
Yes,
Lilly: 3:44
Samberg is the actual human author,
Sara: 3:47
yes.
Lilly: 3:48
and that, that name similarity has to be on purpose.
Sara: 3:51
Oh, I absolutely,
Lilly: 3:53
So I'm not going to apologize. I should, I won't. the, main character slash first person point of view narrator slash. A self-help author, what genre is this book? Even fictional, non-fiction. Is that a thing?
Sara: 4:10
I would've called it satire.
Lilly: 4:12
Oh, okay. Yeah, you're right. There is actually a word for that.
Sara: 4:15
There is, there is actually a word for that. I think it's satire. Before we get any further, I think it's worth explaining what this book is. It is a satirical look at writing advice books. So we have Vincent, Vinny, the Weasel, Volko giving writing advice to the reader. With interjections occasionally in the footnotes about his life or back and forth discussions with his editor CN Subvert. and yeah, so that's, that's the format of this book.
Lilly: 4:52
It is particularly lambasting that kind of writing advice you see where it's like how to make it rich publishing eBooks. Or you can be a big name author, you just have to write for two hours a day every single day for two months, and suddenly you'll have a great novel. Like really, really good job is just absolutely on the nose with all of the aspects that, Chris Humberg, the actual human author, is parodying, but makes it a little insufferable.
Sara: 5:27
Yeah. And, Sundberg reached out to us to request that we review this book on the podcast or to ask if we were interested. And he did say that there's a little bit of plot in the footnotes. I don't necessarily think that he's wrong. There is a little bit, but there I was definitely expecting more plot than we got. So I kept reading it, wondering when that was going to start showing up, and that also was a little hard for me.
Lilly: 5:56
Hmm. Yeah, I think, I mean there's, you get new details about Vinny the Weasel. As you read on, you learn more about his personal life, but I don't know if I would call it plot more like character reveal.
Sara: 6:09
Yes, I, I would, I would say that you do learn more about the characters, but I definitely wouldn't, wouldn't call it plot.
Lilly: 6:18
So my question is, Sarah, you are perhaps the only book podcaster in the history of the universe who is not trying to hawk a book in some way.
Sara: 6:30
Mm.
Lilly: 6:30
You are the unicorn, the reader who is not also a writer.
Sara: 6:35
I will never be a writer. Writing is like pulling teeth for me. I hate it.
Lilly: 6:39
So how did these jokes land? I mean, now you're not perhaps the run of the mill reader because you do interact with this industry quite a bit through the podcast, and so you are familiar with behind the scenes, maybe more than the typical reader is. But did this, like, did the jokes about writing craft land for you? I mean, you know what rhyme and meter is, so it's not like you're out of the loop.
Sara: 7:05
Yeah, I mean, I, I think that everything is like obvious enough that even if you're not a writer, it's still funny, right?
Lilly: 7:15
Mm-hmm.
Sara: 7:16
Like some of his advice about screenwriting where he, he says something along the lines of each, each page of script is a minute of,
Lilly: 7:28
video.
Sara: 7:28
time. Video. Yeah, of content. So if you just space out the words and the letters on the script, that's still gonna be a minute of, of content. And you've expanded your script. And like, you don't have to be a writer to, to know how ridiculous that idea is.
Lilly: 7:48
Okay. Fair enough. And there are some other, I mean, the first part where I actually did literally laugh out loud, it was more of a snort, but that counts was, I mean, just the, the title of the book, right? 500,000 a month as Epic Poet. The idea that you can get rich writing poetry. Is at its core very funny.
Sara: 8:15
Yeah, I mean the whole, the whole premise of the title is, is funny. And the idea that there are only two audiences, what was it? Magazines for women and religious magazines that, that pay good money for stuff like the, the whole thing is just funny.
Lilly: 8:31
I did think it was interesting, the cover, or I should say the title doesn't actually reference money. I mean, it's obviously implied, but it's not$500,000 a month. It's 500,000 a month, and it doesn't use the word earn anywhere, which makes me wonder if that was Sunburg trying to get around actually being labeled as a scam or something. Or maybe I'm reading too far into it.
Sara: 8:59
It's possible. I. I just kind of attributed that to the whole concept of the weasel being incompetent,
Lilly: 9:08
He is. Yes, that's true.
Sara: 9:11
he's not, giving good advice. And he makes lots of, you know, errors and spelling and, and stuff. So I just kind of. Thought that that went along with the whole point of his character.
Lilly: 9:25
It totally does. I was probably just like following a conspiracy theory too far. I so much about this book. Is funny and I want to go through point by point and say, this is why this is bad advice, but that's not fun for anybody and you should just read the book. So let's just talk about maybe some of our favorite aspects of it as a written work, and then we can talk about some of our favorite bad advice.
Sara: 9:52
Yes.
Lilly: 9:53
My favorite aspect. Definitely the author parodies. So, Vinny the Weasel uses excerpts from famous works to give examples of the advice he's giving. And Chris Berg invented fake versions of real authors and pared some of their famous works for the excerpts, and he did such a fucking amazing job. At least for the pieces that I recognized, I was blown away.
Sara: 10:25
okay. So I, I guess this is a question for you because I didn't recognize. If any of the, like, I've not read any of those authors really that he was parroting and I was kind of assuming that the weasel was making up those excerpts.
Lilly: 10:43
Well, they're not necessarily direct excerpts from real work, but all of the authors, or at least I shouldn't say all of them, I didn't look them all up. I recognized at least three quarters of the authors that were mentioned.
Sara: 10:56
I, I recognize the authors mentioned, but for the, like, for the excerpt specifically,
Lilly: 11:02
some of them are from real, so I mean, not from real work, but like, frank, the Bohemian Simeon Kafka, the 18th century French fiction writer. It, the, the excerpt is a parody of the metamorphosis.
Sara: 11:17
Right. Like I, I recognized that I get, I guess what I'm saying is
Lilly: 11:22
Some of the poems, now, again, like not all of the excerpts, I didn't fact check it.
Sara: 11:27
I guess what I'm saying is I didn't necessarily think. That the excerpts were written in the style of the author because, well, A, I wouldn't recognize that. But BI got the impression from other bits of the text, like where these excerpts were found, you know, in, in the garbage or whatever that, the weasel was making them up. So even if the content was a parody, like I did recognize the, the metamorphosis but even, even if the content was a parody, I didn't necessarily think that the writing style was. And it sounds to me like you're saying that the writing style was also being pared.
Lilly: 12:18
Well, I don't know about in, in the fiction of this story yet. Okay. Maybe not, but I mean, those were excerpts that Chris Sunburg wrote himself. Definitely.
Sara: 12:29
Well, yes.
Lilly: 12:30
And it's not. It's def like the, the Hemingway versus Kafka pros. Like you can definitely tell that he was going for those two different authors. And obviously it was like a silly, exaggerated version of it, but like absolutely hit the nail on the head.
Sara: 12:46
Okay. Yeah, that's, that's something that, because I haven't read much or anything of, of any of them, like I just didn't pick up on
Lilly: 12:54
Oh my God, the, the Mr. Walter crazy Legs Whitman excerpt was so good. Sarah, you'll just have to take my word for it.
Sara: 13:03
I mean, I found the excerpts funny. To be clear I just didn't get the, the layer of parody, I guess.
Lilly: 13:10
It, there, there is that additional layer and I just like hats off to Sunburg because. He did a really, really good job. It, it's hard to capture the style of something without like taking it so seriously. I don't know. It, it was very enjoyable. if you've read these in class and are like, yep, I see you, I see what you're doing there or on your own. It doesn't have to be for class. That's just where I read most of them. That's what I recognize most of them from. I didn't recognize any of the playwrights. I'm just not a big play person.
Sara: 13:43
I recognize the playwright names. I've not read a lot or seen a lot of plays by them, but I am a big theater person, so.
Lilly: 13:53
And by the time I got there, I trusted sunburg enough that I was like, I am assuming that this is as spot on as the poets. So, that was definitely my favorite part. It was just like, how truly, well, he pulled that off.
Sara: 14:08
Yeah, I, I'm not sure what I would say my favorite part was. I think my favorite part was some of the absolutely bonkers advice that, that the Weasel gives, but we're gonna talk about that a little bit later. So, I'm, I'm not gonna go into it now. I think I did have a little bit of a rougher time with this than you did. Possibly because like, I'm not a writer and I have no interest in being a writer, so it, it didn't hit quite as hard. For me, and I, I struggled with the voice which as we've said was intentional,
Lilly: 14:43
Yeah,
Sara: 14:45
was really grading.
Lilly: 14:47
Sunburg effectively pissed us off. What got too much for me? Well, the, the style that Vinny the Weasel is writing in, he capitalizes a couple of keywords, but every time they come up, which just made sort of the mental cadence of reading absolutely. Bonkers and also infuriating.
Sara: 15:10
Yeah, that was kind of miserable, like funny, but also kind of miserable.
Lilly: 15:16
I think I might have highlighted an example. One second. Oh yeah. Alberto, Dr. Death Cano. I'll stop. I'll stop. Enjoying how, how great the fake authors were. Just know that makes the book so worth it.
Sara: 15:30
the, the fake authors were great. They really were. I, I did enjoy that part.
Lilly: 15:35
I know that there was a sentence that I was like, this is it. This is the perfect example. I am gonna try to read this to give you a sense of the typography. On the other hand, if you have obtained a good blurb, perhaps even from the advancing big shot in question, and if you have earned many sacks of money than simply stare back hard and with authority. It's the combination of words in all caps and way over hyphenated. That the rhythm is just uncomfortable.
Sara: 16:06
It. Yeah, it really makes for difficult reading in a way that I was not anticipating.
Lilly: 16:12
Yeah, it small chunks. Small. Small chunks.
Sara: 16:17
I don't think that my chunks were small enough.
Lilly: 16:20
Yeah. And the book itself is short, which is good. I don't think I could read 400 pages of this,
Sara: 16:26
No,
Lilly: 16:27
which is a testament to how well it's done. And yet
Sara: 16:30
I mean, I wouldn't necessarily have minded it being half as long as it was just because that, that voice was so difficult. But then we would've lost some of the really great bad advice, and that would've been a loss. So I don't know.
Lilly: 16:49
that's true. The most on the nose, bad advice. In, like when I say on the nose, I mean making fun of something that I hear as advice that pisses me off. And so it delighted me to see him making fun of it was the, always right to who you're going to sell to. the really like huge focus on a marketable audience. I enjoyed immensely.
Sara: 17:15
I think my favorite bit was how to get a more famous author to write a blurb for you
Lilly: 17:22
Yeah.
Sara: 17:23
because it was so over the top. I mean, the whole, the whole book, like all of the advice is over the top, but this. Gave an example. The Weasel gives an example of getting a blurb from someone who enjoys Clay Pigeon shooting or something. And his advice is rent a helicopter. Stay in a hotel the night before and take a taxi to the helicopter while shaving. Then get in the helicopter parachute down. Shoot clay pigeons while you're parachuting and then give your book to the author and then follow the author home and then stalk the author. And it's okay if you get a restraining order. It was, it was just so silly that I loved it.
Lilly: 18:09
Very unhinged. That was also, I think, where we started seeing more plot get brought into the book. It not okay, still with the wishy-washy definition of plot that we're using, but. I mean, that was clearly a personal experience that Vinny, the Weasel was telling us, right? Because he is talking about how, by the way, you should shave your leg. Otherwise ripping the duct tape off was gonna really hurt. that's one of the first times where we start seeing more of his personal experiences. Um, because the first, at least half of the book is just the, the advice. And we don't get as much of him in it.
Sara: 18:48
Yeah, I'd say the first half is like the writing advice. And then we start getting into him talking a little bit or talking around anyway, things that he has done. And I did enjoy the, the back half of the book better when it was not just the writing advice, because like I've said, I'm not a writer. I have no interest in being a writer. That bit just went on a little bit long for me. But when it was less about that, it became more enjoyable.
Lilly: 19:19
My favorite piece of bad advice. Is the one that I feel personally attacked by, which is how you must have absolute silence at all times when writing. And there can be no interruptions or distractions at all. And then. Vinny the weasel goes into how to get rid of your annoying wife or wives as he's on like his fifth divorce or something. How to alienate your children so they don't want your attention. Obviously I haven't gone that far, but I have definitely gone through phases of like, I can't write because the environment's not perfect and so I did deserve that call out. And then his the, the comment later, like, you have grueling days of 20 whole minutes of writing. And I was like, oh no. Oh no. I think that's part of why this book works despite Vinny, the weasels character being so off-putting is because it is. Salient in the points that it makes.
Sara: 20:26
Yeah, I mean, I, I think that it is effective satire,
Lilly: 20:30
Mm-hmm. And definitely like if you've studied English or are doing writing and have encountered some of this advice, you would definitely enjoy it. It's good to hear that Sarah also enjoys it.
Sara: 20:44
I did also enjoy it, although if you are not a writer you might struggle with the first half of the, of the book as I did.
Lilly: 20:52
It's just not as relevant, I think.
Sara: 20:54
Yeah, it's, it's not as relevant. Like you don't, it's funny, but I don't care about 40 pages or however many pages of, of bad writing advice necessarily.
Lilly: 21:07
What about the famous editor and writing groups that you have to pay to be a part of? I thought that was very funny.
Sara: 21:14
That was also very good.
Lilly: 21:16
It's just like, yeah, a lot of that stuff was just so. Well done.
Sara: 21:22
It's very on the nose.
Lilly: 21:23
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Oh. Vinny the Weasel talks about fair use versus crap use when you're getting your work published around the lines of whether the publication pays you, et cetera. And so I was wondering, Sarah, where you thought our lit mag Sotia would fall on Vinny the weasels,
Sara: 21:45
scale.
Lilly: 21:46
scale. Yeah.
Sara: 21:47
I don't actually remember what his scale was.
Lilly: 21:50
me find it. Let me find it.
Sara: 21:51
Actually. That was another thing. While you're, while you're looking for it. That was another thing that I really enjoyed about the book. How wrong his definitions of things were.
Lilly: 22:01
Oh, so wrong. I mean.
Sara: 22:04
They were, they were so wrong. It was delightful.
Lilly: 22:07
Yeah. All right. This is for his definition of fair use. This is a far too common payment ranking from the writing world's pay scale rating system. This informal payment system developed by code breaking resistance riders during the second World War ranks, how well or how very, very badly you are paid for your work. Thusly one. Sales to small, non-paying, quote unquote. Literary magazines are termed crap. Use two sales to medium sized kind of paying magazines. Fair use three sales to filthy large magazines, far less than expected use. See also. Theft use and used use. I think Sost falls between one and two. We are tiny, but we do kind of pay.
Sara: 23:04
I would agree with that. We, we definitely fit the size of. The
Lilly: 23:10
Crap. Crap use. Yes.
Sara: 23:12
but we do, we do pay.
Lilly: 23:14
Yeah. Anyway.
Sara: 23:16
I, I did feel called out by the literary magazine though. I was like, Hey, I do one of those.
Lilly: 23:24
Yeah, there's a lot in here. We're not just gonna list all of it. That's what the book is for overall. Yeah. Who should read this book?
Sara: 23:33
That's a hard question I don't usually struggle as much with my answer.
Lilly: 23:38
If you have ever heard writing advice, especially writing advice, someone is trying to sell other people and rolled your eyes.
Sara: 23:46
yeah, I, I do think that if you are a writer, you will find more of this funny than if you are not a writer. But there's, like we've said, there's enough in there that you don't have to be a writer to read it, but it does help.
Lilly: 24:01
And the format of it, because it's not a narrative. I think this could be a really good like. Oh, you're reading for a couple of minutes while you're waiting for an appointment or something. You're not gonna forget where you are. You're not gonna have to like catch back up with what's going on.
Sara: 24:18
there's not really a plot as such. I mean, I know we've, we've been a little wishy-washy about. Plot, there's, you learn stuff about the characters, but but there's not really continued action that has a climax or anything.
Lilly: 24:32
But I, I think the ideal way to ingest this book would be in small bits, downtime. So if you, I, hmm, what am I trying to say?
Sara: 24:45
I tried to break it up by chapter and that worked really well for the latter half of the book. But for the writing advice, it was still not small enough chunks for me personally.
Lilly: 24:56
Well, like if, if you're in the middle of a huge book and you're like, I don't have the bandwidth to read like some of this epic fantasy with a thousand names right now I just have 10 minutes to kill some time. Like, use this book to fill in the gaps.
Sara: 25:12
Yeah, I do. I do think it would be good for that.
Lilly: 25:14
It, it would work really well in just bite-sized pieces. You don't have to sit down and read the whole thing. You don't have to finish it in a reasonable timeframe because you're not gonna forget what's happening because that's not the point of it. Right?
Sara: 25:28
Yeah.
Lilly: 25:29
so like, really draw it out and take your time and, and just enjoy the silliness. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.
Sara: 25:41
Come disagree with us. We're on Blue Sky and Instagram at Fiction Fans Pod. You can also email us at fiction fans pod@gmail.com or leave a comment on YouTube
Lilly: 25:51
If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and follow us wherever your podcasts live.
Sara: 25:59
We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.
Lilly: 26:05
Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!
