5 More Great Book Ideas 'The Man' Is Too Afraid to Publish
Longtime followers of this column know that I have a long and complicated history with books. Almost two years ago, I posted about a number of book proposals I had written that never made it to print. I've also never missed an opportunity to mention my dating advice book (The Gentleman's Guide to Snaggin' Skanky Blonde Hoodrats), or my Twilight-esque book about Dragons (also currently unpublished), and my other book, which Penguin Publishing House once described as "We regret to inform you that we are not accepting unsolicited submissions at this time." While my publishing history is less than spectacular, I am still determined to get several books published, so that I may enrich the world with my knowledge, and impress chicks who sell books enough to inspire them to have sex with me (Chapter 11 from The Gentleman's Guide!).
To that effort, allow me to present five more books The Man is afraid to publish.
My Self-Help Book
The Self-Help genre is one of the most popular and lucrative on the market. Walk into any bookstore, and you'll be bombarded with hundreds and hundreds of books that teach you how to stop being so sad, or fat, or sad about how fat you are. These books are dedicated to teaching you that the only way to be the best possible you is to buy a book and do whatever another person tells you to do. What these books all have in common is positivity. And while some might argue that positivity is essential to the genre, I maintain that all it does is leave a particular market unsatisfied. If you've read every "You're the best" and "You're perfect the way you are" books and you're still unhappy, then where do you turn? You turn immediately below this paragraph, is where.
My History Book
No one who is alive currently is in any way interesting. We're all just bastard-faced pieces of stupid with nothing original to contribute to society, which is why we so often turn to the quotes, speeches and aphorisms of the great men and women who came before us. Bookstores are flooded with books like The Wit of Oscar Wilde and A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words, because people want to experience the majesty of and learn from our predecessors through the words they actually used.
My next book is like that, but also has my words. (Bonus words!) I paid so much attention to the way Theodore Roosevelt actually thought and spoke that you probably won't even be able to tell when I made some editorial tweaks to his original language.
Snooki and The Situation are best-selling authors and the world hasn't ended. So God is dead and the concept of morality is no longer relevant.
That's why I made this book.
Pictures of JWOWW Looking at Stuff isn't afraid to be upfront about what a piece of bullshit it is. The title was almost Something Something JWOWW, America!, but I decided to change it at the last second to make it more marketable to people who won't pick up a book unless they're positive that it's full of pictures (Jersey Shore's audience?). I've stripped away the idea that anyone is pretending this is an actual book with merit, I've just cut it down to what is basically the essence of the other Jersey Shore books. (The essence is that someone from Jersey Shore did something, and someone else printed it into a book.) This is less of a book and more of a social experiment. If it sells, I nuke the planet.
My Internet-to-Book Transplant Book
Your favorite funny, quick-hitting website already has a book on the shelves. Whenever a publisher sees a funny thing online, something inside them instantly snaps and makes them think, Say, wouldn't this be better if it was on paper and people had to pay for it? And, of course, they're right. Taking something that's popular on the Internet and turning it into a book is so common, we've already done it. Still, as Theodore Roosevelt once said in a book I wrote, "You should always fucking do a thing twice if it's good. Karate Kick!" Since a Cracked.com book already exists, I figured I'd make a novelization of the other website on which I spend all of my time.
This is probably the only book on the market that will tell you what I, specifically, am searching for at all times, and how I feel about it.
From Chapter 3:
From Chapter 6:
From Chapter 11:
From Chapter 12:
From Chapter 13:
From Chapter 22:
My Teen Bullshit Book
It's got vampires in it.
Like, all over it.
Daniel O'Brien is a contributing author to Cracked.com's You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News (now a New York Times Best Seller for three straight weeks!). Order your copy right here or Theodore Roosevelt will eat your dreams.
