Self Publicists Really Can Annoy Me

Many years ago, I was very happy to see a tweet which said, "Self Publicists Really Can Annoy Me, I'm one of the speakers at the Latin Mass Society Conference, but come anyway" or something like that. I forget exactly how I phrased it. Then a couple of years ago I saw a chap interview a publisher of a very good children's book series, on television. No problem with that, except that the interviewer was the author of the books.

So here is me interviewing myself about a book which I wrote part of.

So Stuart could you tell the reader of your blog how this book came about?

Well Dale Ahlquist, President of The American Chesterton Society contacted me and said 'Stuart you're really famous and important, why don't you write your autobiography?' Or something like that. Being really humble I thought it best to agree with him.

But Stuart, it seems that some others have also written some of the book.

Well yes, when I'd finished, bearing in mind that I still cannot type, Dale said it's a little short for an autobiography. So I suggested he ask some totally unknown writer to do an introduction, which would no doubt help their career. Dale very kindly agreed to write it himself, I'm sure he will have a lot of success as a writer after this.

Sorry, I wasn't just thinking about the excellent introduction by Dale, I was also thinking of the other 33 Converts who contributed chapters about their Conversion stories.

Well it seems that Dale struggled to write a long enough introduction, so I helped out again with another idea. Which is very good of me as I'm sure most authors don't have to help out their publishers quite this much. I suggested that Dale find some other Converts, whose stories would never get published in their own right as they are not as famous and important as myself and use them to pad out my book.

But the book is called My Name is Lazarus, not 'Stuart's Autobiography'.

I remember that Chesterton had a simular problem with a publisher at least once, he had come up with a very good name for one of his books, only to have it turned down by the publisher. Something about 'too long', 'won't help sales'. I thought this book should be called "A bit of the life of the very important and famous Stuart, written by himself". No one has actually explained why we didn't end up using that, but there you go. Ruins the sequel and the prequel though, 'A Bit More...' and 'A Bit Earlier...."

So, any last points?

Buy yourself two or three copies of the book, one to keep nice, one for making notes and at least one to give as a gift. Order your copies here. And remember to stay away from self publicists, I'm just giving this interview to support Dale and the 33 unknowns who have written in this great book. As I saw on twitter earlier this year; 

"It's only January and we already have a winner of the Best, Most Important Book Published in the Whole of 2019 Award! Order your copy here."