Fifty Shades and Then Some!

Right this moment at the iTunes bookstore, the #12 bestseller in paid books is "The Diamond Club: A Novel" by Patricia Harkins-Bradley. A "50 Shades" knock-off, it’s been bouncing around the top sellers on this list since it was released on July 29.

And now I’d like to introduce you to the authorial genius behind this hyper-successful ebook. Do we call her by the more formal Patricia, or does she go by the more casual Pat, or the diminutive, Patty? No actually, she is they, and they go by Justin and Brian.

To be specific, the literary forces that brought this oeuvre to light are Brian Brushwood and Justin Robert Young, co-hosts of the weekly comedy show NSFW on TWiT.tv. Late last month, they created the ebook on Vook, the new cloud-based ebook publishing platform. They call "The Diamond Club" their hoax book, and they’re mighty proud of their baby, which is 100 percent crowd-sourced. The two kindly consented to talk to Pub Buzz about the book.

Pub Buzz: Tell me about your book publishing history. How many books have you published? Do you have any strong feelings about the ebook v. p-book debate? Do you prefer to publish in any particular format?

Brian Brushwood: Before ebooks, I'd previously written "The Professional's Guide to Fire Eating" and "Pack the House." Post-ebooks, I've written "Scam School Book 1: Smoke" and "Scam School Book 2: Fire."

Justin Robert Young: I have a background chiefly in newspaper reporting and blog writing. I work extensively with Andrew Mayne. He was exclusively ebook and completely blew up as a thriller author over the last year it was inspiring to see him to go from 0 to 60 in such a short time. For example, I was sitting next to him on a flight from Houston to Fort Lauderdale when he typed the first chapter to his first novella Grendel's Shadow. Less than a year later, he had an agent, four top ten books and one of his books optioned for film.