From ‘Legend’ to ‘Royal Expert’

My first Independent piece was about Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Jo-Jo-the-Dog-faced-Boy, and me getting declared a “royal expert” by some of the world’s least accurate media. Accurate or otherwise, media coverage has a lot to do with how I can afford to live here. It’s the ultimate result of what my high school guidance counselor called “a truly impressive lack of planning.”

That was after she’d asked me, “So what is it you want to do?”

At seventeen, what I wanted to do was to have sex with Krissy Caperson, but mentioning that was probably a mistake. I may be the only high school student ever to flunk Guidance.

I hustled my way through college — did you know you can sell blood plasma every week? — then hitchhiked across the country to beautiful Santa Barbara. Where I could just barely afford to live on the beach. Not in a house on the beach. On the beach. With the sand and the seagulls.

Three hours into a truly excremental job — standing on a Riviera roof in the rain, holding the frayed cord of a toilet de-rooter — I finally came up with a career plan. I’d simply write a best-selling, critically-acclaimed novel. Think Harry Potter meets Hamlet, if Ophelia was oversexed, homicidal, and undead.

Turns out reading novels — or in the case of Moby-Dick and Ulysses, claiming to have read them — is a bit different than writing one. My novel, Legend, took two years. Then, with no track record, I couldn’t get a single agent to read it. Apparently a degree in literature means nothing to literary agents. Nobody even asked about my grade point average. (Actually, nobody anywhere has ever asked about my grade point average. That would have been valuable info to get from my high school guidance counselor.)

 After several years of submittingthe manuscript directly to publishers — none of whom had Krissy Caperson’s gift for speedy rejection — it somehow ended up in the clutches of an aging book packager. Thirteen months later, he called.

“Legend,” he said,” is going to be THE CENTERPIECE of a series I’ll be reselling to a major publisher.” Quoting Freud, he promised me, “wealth, fame and beautiful lovers.” Which, coincidentally, was exactly what I wanted. Then he mentioned the National Book Award and offered a generous advance.

If you’re about to check, not only did I not win the National Book Award, I never even got the full advance. Eventually, to keep me from regaining the rights, he published the book under his own tiny imprint. No fanfare and a world-class ugly cover that misspelled the word “hindrance.”

Then he died. I swear I was three thousand miles away at the time. I have witnesses.

His small press was absorbed by a not-quite-so-tiny publisher. In a cloud of purple whale manure about possible movie deals (“we’re thinking Michelle Pfeiffer as Ophelia”) they brought out the highly unanticipated second edition of my novel. This one had an excellent cover except for the spot where they called the book an allegory. It sold like you would expect an allegory to sell. Maybe a bit less.

During all this, I sold articles and survived by putting together coupon books and recruiting half of Isla Vista to sell them — on commission — to the other half. That worked so well that I ended up in management in a mega-corporation, with a company car, an expense account, a 401k and stock options. My guidance counselor would have been thrilled.

I wasn’t. But eventually, a miracle rescued me from corporate success. Legend made the UPI’s annual “Ten Most Underrated” list, just seven places below a Meryl Streep movie about a dingo that ate a baby. I got an agent.

For twenty-eight days. Then she also died. Buried and everything — I checked.

Her surviving partner talked me into doing a business book. I researched it for months. He sold the proposal in two weeks. I quit my job and wrote the book. The book hit the streets. Nothing happened.

Nothing.

Until — I swear to God — the surviving partner died too. This writing business had a much higher mortality rate than I’d expected. It was like Dawn of the Dead out there.

Still, two weeks later, The Wall Street Journal called. And TIME magazine. A trade association asked me to speak — for a fee so large I was astonished that afterward they didn’t demand their money back. They were actually quite pleased. And, apparently, nobody died.

From that point on, I talked for a living — writing the occasional book on the side — my clients largely generated by coverage in everything from the Today Show to The London Times to The Aztec Daily Bulletin. I became a mini-celebrity or a quasi-celebrity or a B.S. celebrity, I’m not sure which. If you’re thinking that you’ve never heard of me, that’s the difference between a make-believe celebrity and say, Taylor Swift or Tom Hanks or Jack the Ripper.  

And that’s how I can afford to live in Santa Barbara. I’m someone reporters quote when Tom Hanks or Jack the Ripper isn’t available. My mother would be so proud.

You can contact Barry Maher or sign up for his erratically-produced newsletter through www.barrymaher.com.