5755/18775
It's a little over a month until publication day of the new Emergency Questions book and as every author knows this means an hourly (let's be honest six-hourly) visit to Amazon to see how the book is ranking in the charts.
I am torn between head and heart and penis of course. My heart wants you to buy it from
gofasterstripe so that Chris Evans (not that one. Or that one) gets rewarded for his long-time support and makes a bit more money (which he should spend on himself, but will doubtless use to commit some non-mainstream comedian's brilliant show to video tape - as is my understanding). My brain knows that for the book to be a success it needs to do well at the big booksellers, so it will be pushed more and more and I should be directing you to
Waterstones. My penis just wants to be number one, so the fact that
Amazon has charts really appeals to its base desires. Plus my penis still believes that this kind of empty success will lead to its gratification. And it's right. If I get to number 1 in the main charts I am going to give it the wank of its life in the highest high-backed armchair I can find. And live podcast the whole thing. Does that make you more or less likely to buy it? If it's anything different to much, much less, then please hand yourself into the police. You may not yet be a sex criminal/serial killer, but you definitely will be.
So what I am trying to say is please buy three copies of the book, one from Chris so he can make great comedy, one from Waterstones so I can get the respect within the book trade to make this venture a commercial success and one from Amazon, for my penis.
There's not even that much Trivia in the book.
I was still trailing behind a book by an author called Hugh Jassburn and decided to make it my life-time goal to get ahead of him in this chart. Hugh Jassburn found out about this and got in touch on Twitter to wish me luck, because Hugh Jassburn (if that even is his real name) secretly thinks I can never beat him and also that it's a bit sad that I have given myself such a ridiculous comedy name as Richard Herring. But Hugh Jassburn is not my friend. He is my mortal enemy. And he will soon taste what it is like to be fifth rather than 4th in the 6th in the Amazon Books > Reference > Fun Facts & Trivia >Trivia charts.
I love the fact that I can't chart in Fun Fact and Trivia, but if you take out the Fun Facts bit, then I am right there.
I fear by tweeting about this contest I have given Hugh Jassburn the oxygen of publicity and that people faced with the stark choice of buying his book or mine will chose his. I think I would. If he was called Hugh Jass then I would give him the disdain he would deserve, but the addition of the “burn†is, I have to concede, comedic genius. Buy his books.
Anyway, I hope you will support my endeavour too and recommend my book to people who may not be aware of my work. The tome definitely works for non-podcast fans and will be a lot of fun to play at Christmas!
Buy it now or Hugh Jassburn will (literally) win. And we can't give in to Hugh Jassburns.
