Steal this book. Please.
Free plus $19.99 for shipping and handling
Jeffrey Denny
In December 2019, I published a collection of my Medium “humor” pieces.
I titled it, “Waiting for Uber” after a piece that brilliantly parodied Samuel Beckett’s, “Waiting for Godot.” (Spoiler: The Uber never came. Neither did my National Book Award.)
A wonderfully indulgent team tackled my vanity project. Like Ocean’s 11 through 20, we had all the proper villains, led by me (doing Clooney, of course):
— A published author.
— An experienced professional writer/editor.
— A tough academic editor who knew her participles from her pluperfects.
— An Charlize Theron-y crack designer and production manager, and her Anna Kendrick-y assistant.
— A delightfully quirky illustrator and former spouse.
— A web designer and a book PR pro.
— And a long-suffering pal/writing colleague who penned the forward, which I edited to make it more unctuous.
The book team suffered through my 200+ Medium pieces at the time (this one is #524 ) to select the 35 least bad. And scrub all the Trump rants.
We secured an ISBN number and bar code. Launched a website, WaitingforUber.com. Planned a spring 2020 rollout. Lined up book parties with excited hosts promising lavish turnouts. Teased my thirsty fan base. And set up sales on Amazon.
In March 2020, Covid said, “you wanna do what now?”
Suffice that roughly 450 copies of “Waiting for Uber,” out of an optimistic 500 first run, remain moldering in my basement.
But that means 50 copies are out there.
A 10% distro may smell like failure to Neggy Nancy book publishers, wholesalers, retailers, illiterate book critics, craven New York Times bestseller list compilers, discerning readers, and other sociopaths who fail to recognize brilliance.
But according to my internet research, Beckett’s “Godot,” anointed, “the most significant English-language play of the 20th century,” had approximately zero initial distribution. Except for a few playscripts for early performances.
I’m no Nobel Laureate in Math, but doesn’t 50 beat zero infinity times?
How did I put a 20th century literary giant to shame?
It was easy thanks to my Six Winning Strategies For Self-Published Authors Victimized By An Historic Deadly Pandemic®:
1. Gift generously
I gave my book to just 50 of my 2 million dearest friends, family, colleagues, and social media followers to create buzz and FOMO.
I inscribed them, “You inspired me! This book is your fault!”
2. Target influencers
Many giftees failed to acknowledge, let alone adore, my incredible, indelible, compellable, memorable and immemorable use of Roget’s Thesaurus. Let alone my life-changing words, wit, and wisdom. Except to thank the Buddah, Yahweh, Allah and Brahman they’re not me.
But a child of nine whose liberal parents allowed her to see my book in spite of its immature themes laughed and laughed at my back-cover biography. She’s a tween now and probably interpretatively dancing my book on TikTok.
3. Commit retail crime
As the perp in my personal episode of “Law & Order: Special Book Unit,” I snuck seven copies into a popular local book store and prominently displayed them in the humor essay section that David Sedaris practically owns.
I really did this. The silent response, not even “please come and get your books,” spoke volumes.
4. Creatively market
I somehow have a small but influential local reader fanbase.
So does a neighborhood bagelry that was struggling through Covid like many merchants.
My progressive urban village loves books and bagels like nobody beyond the Upper West Side.
Lightbulb moment: Why not give the bagler a stack of “Waiting for Uber” to offer as premium gifts, one per customer, when they buy a dozen?
I would publicize her bagels. She would publicize my book. “A winning formula for deal synergies,” as McKinsey & Company would say.
I was excited to hear from one lucky bagel buyer. “I tried to read your book,” she said. “There definitely were some funny parts.”
5. Kill your darlings
No, not my loved ones because they refused to read my book. Rather, in the Faulknerian sense that if you love your writing, set it free.
Like when I recently heard back from the bagler.
“I still have a bunch of your books left over,” she said. “Do you want them, or should I put them in recycling?”
In my mind, I replied, “Do what you must, philistine. Toss them if you soul permits you to destroy books like a dystopian Fahrenheit 451 knuckle-dragging MAGA woke-triggered parent.”
Instead my mouth replied, “Go ahead and toss them.”
The bagler surely did. Into the recycling bin next to the dumpster where she tosses leftover bagels.
At least my books might someday be recycled into books. Those bagels will never be bagels again. We hope.
6. Bequeath to survivors
I’ll leave mine to my grieving family to hire an estate cleanout crew to dispose of.
Who knows? Maybe a former top New York publishing executive relegated to working for the estate cleanout company due to the collapse of reading will find and read my book, declare it “the most significant English-language humor collection of the 21st century, the next Beckett,” and shop it around.
Long story short, like Beckett, I’ll be more famous posthumously than humously. My loved ones will claim they believed in me all along. But still not read my book.
So act now!
Order your copy of “Waiting for Uber” today. Order several and give them as gifts. Even gag gifts, I don’t care.
I take cash, checks, credit cards, money orders, Venmo, cyber coins, gold coins suckering elders as seen on Fox News, leftover foreign currency, promissory notes, and disgraced Confederate States dollars. I’m not proud. Great writers are humbled by the art.
The first 450 books ordered get a free dozen vintage bagels.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington “writer.”
