I've been a best-selling author since the first book I wrote. The book wasn't a best seller, but somehow I was. Almost everyone introducing me at speaking engagements, on radio interviews and definitely on TV appearances, completely unprompted, added the phrase "best-selling" to my introduction. It's like they assume that every author is a best seller. Even when I specifically told them my book wasn't a best seller, it crept in.

My first book was about — wait for it — Yellow Pages advertising. Don't laugh. Aimed at the five million businesses that, back then, often wasted piles of money advertising in the Yellow Pages, it made me a small bundle. "It's not a best seller," I explained to one TV host during the break before the interview. "But," he asked, "isn't it the best-selling book on Yellow Pages advertising?" I admitted it was easily that. (Number one, out of every single book on the subject — both of them.) And he introduced me as "Best-selling, award-winning author, Barry Maher."

He later explained, "At 5:45 in the morning, we need you to expand to your I-MEE."

"My I-MEE?

"I-M-I. Your Incarnation of Maximum Interest. You must have won some kind of award at some point."

Actually, I was an award-winning poet. At the beginning of my career, one of my few attempts at poetry had been selected "best poem of the issue" by the editor of a short-lived, xeroxed "literary" magazine who didn't know any better. The award? Six copies of the magazine. Actually, now that I think about it, every contributor probably got at least some contributor's copies. Making my actual award somewhat less than six xeroxed copies. I'll have to amend my Wikipedia page. (If I ever get one.)

For obvious reasons, I don't brag about — or ever mention — that award. And, though it wasn't my final triumph, to this day, I've yet to win an award I'd actually heard of before winning it. Or at least before being nominated for it — usually by a disinterested party like my publicist or my publisher.

Nowadays, the streets seem to be crawling with "award-winning, best-selling authors." Though few of them have won the Nobel Prize or a Pulitzer or The National Book Award. And best-selling frequently doesn't refer to The New York Times bestseller list. It could be referring to the U.S.A Today or The Wall Street Journal lists.

Or the book might be an Amazon best seller. That's another slightly less than earth-shaking claim I could make. Actually, I'm an internationally best-selling author on Amazon. Once, after my mug was on the cover of a soon-to-be defunct Irish magazine (I doubt my face killed the publication, but, obviously, it didn't help), my book was the ninth best-selling book on Amazon in Ireland. And after a promoter's big-time push for a session I was doing in Oman, I had the 16th best-selling book on Amazon there. Or maybe I've gotten the numbers in Ireland and Oman mixed up. Neither lasted long enough to make much of an impression on my award-winning, international best-selling self.

And now, Amazon has added categories: the best estimate is 666 book categories (an ominous number). Each category has a best seller list with at least 100 entries. Some apparently have 200. So roughly speaking, at any given moment, there could be at least 66,600 Amazon best-selling books in the U.S. alone. A while back, my publisher did a promotion for "The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon," and it made four lists by accident, including, as I remember, Humorous U.S. Supernatural Thrillers with Seven Word Titles and Ominous Clouds on the Cover.

Check out Barry Maher's dark humor supernatural thriller, "The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon on Amazon. Sign up for his Substack at www.barrymaher.com.

To find out more about Barry Maher and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Ed Robertson at Unsplash