Publish This Book: The Unbelievable True Story of How I Wrote, Sold, and Published This Very Book

Fed up with the Byzantine quest of trying to get a book published, Stephen Markley decides to cut to the chase and simply write a hyperkinetic high-concept memoir about trying to publish a bookthis book, to be precise.Like a mobius strip in book form, the concept is circular, self-indulgent, andmaybe, possibly, hopefullybrilliant.

This is the modern day saga of a plugged-in, hyped-up, idealistic, ambitious, arrogant, audacious, unyielding young writer, who's tired of waiting his turn. Like any work that claims gleefully and irreverently to be about nothing, it's really about pretty much everythingfrom the pitfalls of narrating your life as it unfolds to those tumultuous early years of adulthood when the promise of youth still holds the capacity to inspire awe. It is a story of strugglesto find your true voice in your work and in your lifegiven form as the author seeks a way to publish this book.

"It doesn't matter what problems you've got with Markley's sprawling, self-referential account of his efforts to sell a book about his efforts to sell the book he's writing at that very moment — he's already anticipated your criticisms, from the imperfect echoes of writers like Dave Eggers and Chuck Klosterman to the preponderance of dick jokes and other forms of frat boy humor. 'Of course, on a basic level, the book is a stupid idea,' he admits early on; later, he concedes, 'I've just been winging it, and it shows.' He might have been better off cutting down some of the more self-indulgent sections, like a minihistory of his tenure as a 'political sex columnist' for his college paper or an exploration of the fake memoir phenomenon featuring made-up conversations with Chicago drug dealers and underprivileged high school students. But there are compelling, emotionally resonant passages, too: a reflection on what it's like to shake loose the influence of a literary mentor, for example, or a best friend's realization of just how much an unplanned pregnancy has changed his life" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Fed up with the Herculean task of trying to get a book published, Markley decides to cut to the chase and simply write a high-concept memoir about trying to publish a book--this book--and chronicle his struggles along the way.