# Behind the Blog: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Flamin' Hot Slop

> Source: <https://www.404media.co/behind-the-blog-the-complete-idiots-guide-to-flamin-hot-slop/>
> Published: 2026-08-28 15:16:39+00:00

*This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss cool old books, new toys for ICE, and Flamin' Hot Slop.*

**SAM: **[ On the podcast last week](https://www.404media.co/podcast-amazon-is-destroying-rare-books-to-train-ai/), we had what I thought was a pretty nuanced and interesting conversation about the "rare books" discourse (although I'm biased; listen and let me know). I mentioned this in the episode but it all makes me think about all the rare books I've bought over the years — these are rare by any definition of the word in that they're usually limited or out of print and I got them through used book sellers online where only one copy was often available.

When my book launched a few years ago, [I started a very short-lived Substack blog](https://comingonline.substack.com/p/reaping-sowing-books-edition) to write about some of the behind the scenes stuff happening around publication. [ One of those posts](https://comingonline.substack.com/p/reaping-sowing-books-edition) is a bibliography, including a lot of the books I sourced and references for my own.

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