After reading the first thirds of Joe Bob Briggs' book length rant IRON JOE BOB, I started to think a little bit about other books that have been published over the years that are basically little more than loose rants where the author picks a subject then loosely ties things that have nothing to do with the original subject matter. They do this because no one cares about the 'secondary' subject matter so they have to be drawn in with a 'primary' subject matter. In other words, an article about football becomes the angle of squeezing in an article about men and their love for violent sports because no one would want to read about men and their love for violent sports. They want to read about football. But they don't really want to read about football. They don't even want to read about men and their love for violent sports. Here is what they want: they want to read an author who rips men and football and the love of violent sports completely apart. They want to read the writer's rants. Sometimes the author is pure parody (Hunter S. Thompson) or he is trying to be serious (Burroughs, to some extent). But, the author serves the purpose of a ranting loon and his readers dig him for it. But, he needs the cover of some sort of angle in order to make the whole thing semi-serious or socially conscious. Yes, it is a somewhat hollow point, but it is the driving force behind the reader believing he or she is taking part in something meaningful and will learn some great insight as a result.

This all sounds like a whole lot of nonsense, doesn't it? In a way it is. In a way it isn't.

Some authors are lucky. They can reach an audience the hard way, but build the audience up to the point NOT giving him a book deal would be foolish. The aforementioned Joe Bob had a column in a local newpaper and a newsletter which later expanded into bookdeals and TV gigs. Keep a one point in mind - Joe Bob was funny and he was talented and he was enjoyable to read.  This made developing an audience an inevitability and his success somewhat ordained. (Granted, he never became a NY Times bestselling author like, well, a number of no talent authors...but that is another story...but he did reach a level of success most have not) 

Regardless, people love reading ranting, stream of consciousness, humorous insights into pop culture and the world. Why? Because they are bombarded with serious reports of arsurdities everyday. They just feel pretty overjoyed when someone comes along and points out the absurdities to them that they already know. They just needed a little re-assurance. 

Maybe I could write one of those books if I wasn't so damn serious all the time.