It was a joke…

So, yesterday I stumbled upon a post talking about Barack Obama and his summer reading list. Apparently, he posted on Facebook about the five books he read over the summer. The first thing to pop into my mind was: I wonder what he read. So I went and looked. The second thing to pop into my head was: man, wouldn’t that be a trip if my book was on that list?! And then the third thing to pop into my head was: That would be a really funny joke to make it look like he read my book. Ha! 


I took a screenshot of the Facebook post and then Googled what font FB uses for posts. Then I opened up Photoshop and wrote in my own ridiculous thing that I thought Obama would say about my latest book. This is what I came up with.

Superb…I admired my handiwork, posted the image to Instagram (without any context) and then waited for people to have a good laugh at my expense. Boy, was I wrong. Imagine my shock when people started congratulating me.


I let it ride but then even more people started chiming in with congratulations and nice comments. And some of these were people whom never comment on anything or who I haven’t heard from in a long time.

Then I started to feel bad…but also a little perplexed. What was going on?

It never occurred to me that anyone would actually believe that Obama (or any celeb) would read my book. To me, it’s such a ridiculous idea that I laughed out loud imagining him sitting down and reading the book and then taking to FB to tell millions of people about it. I mean c’mon!

Still, people bought it, which made me feel like an asshole.

To give you some perspective into my mindset, you have to understand that I can’t get the press, academia or the publishing world to even piss on me when it comes to being either a writer or a publisher. The door that leads to publicity online and beyond was abruptly slammed in my face around 2016 or so. No one asks my opinions, no one reviews my work, no one invites me to anything and no one asks me for interviews. Despite the brief success and national press I had a few years back I am, in a sense, dead in the water. Or, as I noted in my book, I am back to square one.

I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo…what the hell am I doing here?

Which is why I thought it was hilarious that Obama would read my book. Can you imagine? I cannot. And this post isn’t to complain about my lack of notoriety or accolades but just to let you know that I feel bad about people believing this. I honestly thought people would get a kick out of the goofy notion that Barry reads BSP and that the joke was obvious.

But, as usually happens with these things, this blew up in my face and now I look like an asshole for trolling people. I tend to take things that are an inside joke and then throw them on people like gasoline and a match. Fwoosh!

To those of you who thought enough of my work that you believed there was a chance that someone that well known would not only read my book but praise it publicly, thank you. I truly appreciate the sentiment and apologize for the joke.

I don’t imagine I’ll be doing this again any time soon as I am already hesitant to post anything online anymore.

If you’re interested in the book Obama most certainly did not read, you can get a signed copy here.

In the meantime I’ll show myself out. Sorry, folks.


1 thought on “It was a joke…

  1. The world would be an entirely different thing if it were fair, or even good. Your words will live beyond you and that’s something you can be proud of. As long as print lasts we have a chance of living beyond the giant of internet values.

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