My goal is to push out this newsletter on the last day of each month, but obviously I’ve failed to meet expectations yet again (pretty much like the annual reviews I received from most of my employers).
But (just as I protested when being presented with these reviews) — I’ve got a good excuse! I’ve been working on a new book, a career-spanning compilation of posts.
Now, let’s back up for a second… when I use the word “career,” I am *not* referring to any association with any of the aforementioned employers. Rather, I’m focusing (or, as this would read if being published in The New Yorker: “focussing”) on my output as a humor blogger. I started my original blog, FactsOptional.com, in December 2012 and have kept at it diligently ever since. I’ve branched off on a few side roads (TheTrumpPoems.com; RhymeForTheNews.com) along the way, but the common thread through all of these concoctions has been to try and draw a laugh out of the reader. And one day, I hope to be able to update that last sentence to say “readers.”
Earlier this year I consolidated all of the various musings under the banner of JohnBranning.com, separated into 3 categories: Facts / Politics / Rhymes (although there is some overlap among them).
Anyway, enough of this inside baseball talk. I’ll get back to some details about the book after reviewing my posts from this month. [SPOILER ALERT: They’re all about Trump.]
The Trump (and other political) Poems:
Unbottled Rage (July 2, 2022)
I’m gonna bet Trump wasn’t the first President to hurl something within the confines of the White House, but I *will* wager his toss was the only condiment launched toward a wall.
Incited Utterance (July 13, 2022)
Details of an off-the-rails meeting in the Oval Office with the “crazies” on one side of the room and the “slightly-less-crazies but still…” on the other side were shocking — but not unexpectedly so.
A Fairway From the Truth (July 30, 2022)
Trump hosted a LIV Golf tournament at his Bedminster, New Jersey course. As you likely know, the LIV golf league is sponsored by an investment arm of the Saudi government and has been widely condemned as a prime example of “sports-washing,” an attempt to apply a sheen of legitimacy over a stinking pile of shit. Naturally, Trump was more than happy to step right into it.
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So, back to the book. I’m in the process of pulling together personal favorites, along with posts that garnered positive comments/high readership. (I’m not all that sure how high people actually *are* while reading my stuff, but I can hazard a guess.)
I published my last collection drawn from short essays back in 2017, and the last collection of Trump-themed poems in 2020 — so I feel the universe is open to an update. Some of the selections have appeared in the prior books; some are being anthologized for the first time. Here’s the proposed front cover:
In the past, I’ve gone through the rigamarole of combing through, compiling, updating, editing, and constructing the various paperback and e-book editions and then immediately posting the links to purchase on Amazon — kind of a “Here it is!” ethos. I have learned that is *not* the way to sell books… So this time I’m working on a more comprehensive marketing strategy. My background is not in marketing, so you can only speculate how well that’s going to turn out.
But one thing I *am* going to do is distribute advanced reading copies to crowd-source some feedback and, hopefully, generate some pre-publication buzz. If you are interested in receiving one of these copies, please email me at JohnARBranning@gmail.com (or reply to this post) with your name and mailing address. I anticipate getting copies out mid- to late-August, leaving just enough time for the advance readers to squeeze in one final beach read during Labor Day weekend.
At a writers’ conference a few years ago, I forced graciously presented a copy of one of my books to Nick Clooney (George Clooney’s father, and a well-known media personality in his own right) — hoping he would read and enjoy it and leave it out on his living room coffee table and then when George and wife Amal came to visit George would spot it and ask, “What’s this, Dad?” and his dad would reply, “Oh, only the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time, son!” and George would be intrigued and start to thumb through and laugh so hard he’d snort and then option it for a movie adaptation.
Did I mention that my background is not in marketing?
Anyway, I shouldn’t talk past the close here… let me know if you’d like one of those advance copies and I’ll forever be in your debt.
JB