Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims

I’m not jealous that the first book produced by Rush Limbaugh since 1993, called Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans, immediately took the top spot on the Amazon hard cover bestseller list.

His new book has already reached #152 overall in the Kindle store, #1 in its category for Teen/Young Adult historical fiction — on first day it was officially available for sale.

Nor am I jealous that Rush Revere has received twice as many reviews on the first day of release as all five of my books put together — mostly because I’m glad that I don’t have to contend with his vicious critics, who seem to resent him for breathing.

Twelve of the initial forty-one reviewers of Rush Revere only gave the book a one-star rating. Those uber-negative reviews were obviously written by snarky and intolerant liberals. At least one of them was honest enough to begin his review by saying: “Did I read the book? No…”

Then how can you review it?

None of the most negative reviews were of the “Amazon Verified Purchase” variety. About half of the five-star reviews were verified — but in fairness, I don’t know how the pro-Limbaugh fans have had enough time to read the book and write a review, either.

Remember, it was only released today.

There is absolutely no reason for me to envy Rush Limbaugh’s success selling books on Amazon. In our capitalist society, demand is the only constraint on the total size of the economic pie.

My problem isn’t that Rush’s radio listeners prefer his book to mine. My biggest problem is that his listeners don’t even know who I am.

We haven’t exactly targeted the same audience.

He’s catering to younger readers of historical fiction. I’m primarily trying to attract the interest of adult readers to my “Rocky Leonard” thriller novels.

The only thing I’ve written that might overlap in appeal to the same group of readers might be  my collection of short stories about animal rescue titled Always a Next One.

What does make me jealous of Rush is that he narrates the audio version of his book himself. Just think about the ramifications of that fact for a couple of seconds, and do the math.

Twenty million people listen to his radio show on a regular basis. How many of them do you think will want to listen to him read his book to them?

I’m guessing millions. But you know what? Good for him. Achieving success through hard work is, in fact, the American way.

More power to him. I only wish I could get him to narrate the audio book of my novel, and then promote it on his radio show.