Legend by Barry Maher

7/27/2025

Multi-volume author Barry Maher introduces us to his debut fiction novel, “Legend”:
This growing cult classic is now available in a new edition. It ranks with the best, most imaginative, and most inspirational novels of the genre. It has been favorably compared to Dune and The Postman (the books not the movies). The story takes place in a decaying city of the future, a city that is in the process of devouring itself. The heroes—a young man and woman—escape their rough lives on the streets only to be trapped between a parasitic government and an insane satanic netherworld. The only way for the young woman to triumph is to penetrate what cannot be penetrated. The only way for the young man to survive is to become a god. In this futuristic, post-apocalyptic novel, the author convincingly portrays one of the major elements of so-called spiritual fiction—an imaginative presentation of self-discovery amid life’s hindrances and limitations, out of time and place.

Interesting story, I enjoyed reading it. The story unfolds slowly, a fair amount of description and information is told from a first-person point of view and which affords deep intimacy with the characters and the settings. Different characters share their part in the overall plot, and there are lots of twists and turns as a result. I don't give spoilers, so I will say no more except that you will enjoy the story of life that is brutal for most people. I award 4.9 stars.

You can buy this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Barry-Maher-ebook
https://www.goodreads.com/Legend
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/legend-barry-maher

You can follow the author:
https://x.com/barrymaher
http://www.barrymaher.com
https://bsky.app/profile/barrymaher.bsky.social
https://www.facebook.com/barry.maher.98

tags: dystopian, future, science fiction, tyranny, oppressive government
Copyright © 2025 Mark L. Schultz, except for the author’s introduction

60 Comments

Barry Maher link

7/28/2025 01:07:18 pm

Thanks for the review, Mark. Even better, it got me to this site, which is great!

Mark

7/28/2025 01:46:42 pm

You are welcome. I enjoyed your book. I love first-person point-of-view writing. It's very intimate.

Thank you for the compliment about my website. I have worked to make it a destination for authors and writers of all kinds.

First question.

Please, tell us more about yourself. Perhaps something a little bit beyond your bio.

Barry Maher link

7/28/2025 02:05:50 pm

I always thought I would be a novelist. At least I did from when I was about twelve when I realized that I was never going be a professional baseball player. But I never really did much about it. I wrote. I published articles in maybe a hundred different publications and held about that many different jobs to support myself while I was doing it.

Then 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 decided this wasn’t a great long-term strategy. So I decided to write a best-selling, critically-acclaimed novel. Think Harry Potter meets Hamlet, if Ophelia was oversexed, homicidal and undead.

Mark

7/28/2025 03:51:51 pm

That last phrase, "...if Ophelia was oversexed, homicidal and undead," really made me laugh! Thank you, I needed that. I think I was about the same age when I realized professional sports was not part of my future.

You have done a lot of writing. Maybe humor should become part of your writing style, if it isn't already. I always feel good after a big laugh.

New questions.

Are you a full-time or part-time writer?

What kind of work do you do if you are a part-time writer? Feel free to skip that question if you would rather not answer.

Barry Maher link

7/28/2025 07:08:44 pm

Of course, I'll answer. It's not like I have a part-time job as a gigolo. (I applied, but they turned me down. Something about frightening the horses.)

I'm a full-time writer. For years I was also a professional speaker, but I got tired of doing an evening keynote in Vegas, running for the red eye, then doing an opening keynote the next morning in Miami. Now I only speak when I feel like it.

I write every day. I've got a new novel coming out in September, "The Great DIck: And the Dysfunctional Demon" and I write the syndicated weekly Slightly Off-Kilter column. The column is largely humor. The novel, which is basically a horror novel has a lot more humor in it than I thought. When I started getting blurbs from other authors, fortunately they were all excellent (he modestly slips into the conversation) but I was surprised by all the references to the humor in the book. So, we added the subtitle to reflect that. Because The Great Dick was too subtle, I guess.

Mark

7/28/2025 07:13:24 pm

I love humor and laughing, it is the cheapest way to enjoy feeling good.

Legend was something different for you; I don't recall finding much to laugh about. Unless I was too tired when I was reading and missed any subtle humor.

New questions.

What are your three favorite genres to read for pleasure?

Has writing changed the pleasure of reading for you?

Barry Maher link

7/29/2025 07:36:56 am

I don't know if I have any favorite genres. My tastes in fiction are eclectic. It really varies according to my mood or how long it's been since I last read something in the genre. Right now, I'd like to read a great legal thriller or a really innovative work of science fiction because I haven't read either one for a while. There's nothing like a well-crafted thriller, legal or not: historical thrillers, political thrillers. And I love great fantasies. What can top Game of Thrones for pulling you into an entirely different world?

I love horror of course, since that's what my next book is. Crystal Lake Publishing, my most recent publisher, specializes in horror and they've brought out some great stuff. I love mysteries as long as the author doesn't cheat and pull the solution out of the nether part of his or her anatomy, in the last chapter, like some cheap TV mystery. I also read literary fiction that's actually good rather than just pretentious.

For nonfiction, it's biographies, popular histories, and even true crime.

If anything, writing has increased my enjoyment of reading. But I prefer to get so swept up in the story I'm not thinking about the style or the plotting or what the author is doing with the dialogue. Lee Child, at his best, can do that to me. On one level I can see him pulling the strings. But I can also feel myself being carried along with it. And he's a great stylist. The thriller Hemingway.

Mark

7/29/2025 08:39:19 am

Science fiction is my favorite genre and fantasy is a close second. I have two recommendations for you, books I have read and thoroughly enjoyed. The most recent is Now Comes Grim, the first of a trilogy. The second and third books are actually prequels to the first. Before that book, Lenders by Travis Borne was my favorite wild, sci-fi adventure. Since you like horror, I will also recommend the Project Threshold series written by Craig Crawford. I have reviewed this multi-volume series on my website also. I am not a big fan of gory horror, but his books do thrill me.

Many authors have told me that it gets harder to enjoy a good story without analyzing it as they read. I can relate to that as a proofreader. I don't think the spelling errors will ever stop jumping of the page at me.

New questions.

Why do you write?

Do you also journal?

Barry Maher link

7/29/2025 01:11:05 pm

Thanks for the recommendations,Mark. After reading several of your reviews, it seems like our tastes are similar.

Why do I write? When I first started trying to write professionally, it was a job. I made myself put in my time, even if I was sometimes watching the clock.

Now I write because there's nothing I would rather do. And that's true whether I'm working on a novel or writing my weekly column.

I don't journal. When I'm not writing, I'm frequently making notes about what I'm currently working on, and I do keep an idea file. But I don't journal. I probably should and I'm happy to recommend it in theory. But knowing me, even if I kept journals, in all likelihood I wouldn't ever go back and read any of them. And I certainly wouldn't want to waste writing time digging through ten or fifteen years of journals looking for some passage that probably wouldn't turn out to be half as good as it seemed when I wrote it.

However, in the manuscript I'm currently working on, I do use journaling as a plot device. Do I get partial credit for that?

Mark

7/29/2025 01:57:31 pm

The survey says you get partial credit for that plot device. I am glad to hear your keep an idea file. Sometimes the muse speaks at inconvenient times, and making note of the idea prevents losing it.

New questions.

Who was the first person to inspire you to write something to publish?

What inspired you to write this book?

Barry Maher link

7/29/2025 03:20:06 pm

Ray Bradbury was probably the author who made me want to write. It wasn't because I thought I could do what he did. I couldn't. I still can't. But his stuff was so great that it made me want to try. I'm still trying.

As for what inspired me to write this particular book, it was actually a paperback horror novel I came across. It probably sold about seven copies and I can't even remember the title unfortunately. But the way it dealt with the issue of evil stuck with me. It certainly influenced the first draft of LEGEND.I'm not sure how many drafts that influence lasted. Some of it might still be there.

Obviously, our ideas come from all around us. But as far as actually starting LEGEND, i can remember the day I started it. I wasn't thinking oh here's a good idea for a story. I was thinking that if I wanted to make it as a writer, I needed to write. So I started writing. Then i rewrote. And rewrote. And rewrote. It was a job. It's still a job. That doesn't mean I don't love it (mostly). It just means that during working hours, I write.

Mark

7/30/2025 08:19:46 am

I recall reading a lot of Bradbury's sci-fi books when I was in middle school. He was one of my favorite authors. Asimov another.

The issue of evil is at the root of so many different stories.

I agree with you that writing must happen whether or not inspiration is present. Butt in chair, fingers on keyboard. Some will disagree with that, and that's okay. There is more than one way to write.

New questions.

Why did you choose this genre, or do you feel the genre chose you?

Will you keep writing in the genre or will you branch out?

Barry Maher link

7/30/2025 01:04:55 pm

Excellent questions. I think with "Legend" the genre chose me. Which is strange because what came to me first was the idea of someone being thrust into a completely unfamiliar job situation. You'd think that would be a modern coming of age story. But I saw it as even more radical, someone geing thrust from one class into another. Science fiction allowed me to expand the class distinction. The world grew from there.

I've already branched out. My new novel, "The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon" out in September, is horror. And as you mentioned, "Legend" has very little humor. "The Great Dick" has, to my surprise' quite a bit, even though it is horror. So it's branching out in that way too.

Mark

7/30/2025 02:07:27 pm

Like a duck out of the water, it doesn't cope well. A coming-of-age story in any setting. I love it! A common and simple plot format that you extrapolated nearly to an extreme. I imagine that the world-building was fun. You described this world so well, it became a major player or character in the story.

Your next book will undoubtedly be a lot of fun to read.

New questions.

Have you ever seen a UFO or UAP, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena?
Have you ever seen a cryptid, an animal unknown to modern zoologists, or found evidence of one?

Barry Maher link

7/30/2025 03:03:07 pm

Thanks, Mark. on the subject of my new book, I just got the latest version of the trailer for it. If your readers would like to see it, it's at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XYZk69ELjE5t9I_Wblbhu4AScFU9tZEA/view (copy and paste time)

Thanks for realizing that, in a novel like "Legend" or "Game of Thrones" or "Lord of the Rings," the world itself is actually a major player.

In answer to your questions, no, I have never seen a UFO or UAP. If the space brothers are visiting the planet, they seem to be avoiding me. Which is okay. I've been very busy.

And if I'd ever seen an animal unknown to modern zoologists, I probably wouldn't realize it. I'd probably just assume it was an animal unknown to me. I've subscribed to the Smithsonian magazine for many years. And from time to time, they have articles about animals I've never heard of. So, I realize my knowledge of the animal kingdom is just a subset of what modern science knows. And that subset is probably not as large as large as I think it is.

However, all that said, the only times I've ever encountered an animal unknown to me, I was visiting a zoo. I assume the animals there were not unknown to modern zoologists.

Once, years ago, I was stuck in San Jose, hitchhiking I looked down and, on the side of the road in the dirt and debris, I saw some very strange bones. I couldn't figure out what kind of an animal it was until I poked around a bit with a stick. It was a human hand. Which is known to science, thought this particular one was unknown to the local police.

Mark

7/30/2025 04:14:24 pm

You are welcome.

Your trailer has a considerable impact with lots of suggestion. Since it's horror, I am not surprised that there is little hint of humor in the trailer. Perhaps you should make another trailer showing more humor.

I have not seen a UFO either, though my sisters swear we saw one as children. No cryptids for me also, though there was lot of talk about someone's uncle seeing a Bigfoot. Nobody had a picture either.

Finding bones of someone's hand is more than a little creepy, in my book.

New question.

How many drafts did your book go through before publishing?

Barry Maher link

7/30/2025 06:03:56 pm

We may do a second video at some point. And yes, finding somebody's hand was more than creepy. There's no good reason why a human hand should be lying beside the road, and plenty of bad reasons.

I honestly have no idea how many drafts of "Legend" there were. I go over a book until I find myself changing things back to the way they were before. With "Legend" there was even one futher draft. I went through the entire book again before the second publisher brought out the current version.

Mark

7/30/2025 06:34:55 pm

Plenty of bad reasons, indeed.

Doing your own proofreading is tough, and your brain lies to you. It gets tired of seeing the same thing over and over again, so it stops showing the errors. On the Words For Thought page elsewhere on my website, my most recent blog is about how to hack your brain into seeing the same old manuscript as a new work. You will be amazed at what you see using these hacks.

New questions.

Is there anything unconventional about your writing technique?

Why is that?

Barry Maher link

7/31/2025 08:40:25 am

You, Mark, are like a genius proofreader. (This is known as sucking up to the interviewer, But it's also true.) I was astonished by the things you picked up in "Legend" during a casual reading. That's a book that has been edited and proofread by both the author (okay, not necessarily a great proofreader) and by the editors and the proofreaders at two different publishers. And the things you picked up were so small I barely even spotted them when you pointed them out.

I don't know if there's much that's unconventional about my writing technique. I write basically during working hours. Nowadays, unless I've got something else planned, I write on weekends too. I enjoy it more than most other things I'm likely to do. But as I said, it's basically sit my butt down in the chair and write, then I rewrite and rewrite some more.

When it comes to writing my weekly column. My columns are all evergreen, meaning then can be run by the newspapers anytime. They aren't really linked to current events. When i have an idea for one. I'll get it all down, telling the story. Then I'll go over it daily, along with a any number of other columns I've got at various levels of development. Perfecting them, making them funnier.

During any given week maybe three of the columns are virtually done. One of them I'll turn in to the syndicate on that Friday. When I decide which one I'm going to go with, I have my wife read it. Making sure she doesn't get hung up on anything and that she understands all the jokes. And that she doesn't think any of them are just stupid.

I was a speaker for years. And I never knew what was going to work with a live audience until I tried it on stage. So, I got to perfect the material over time. As writers, we don't get to do that. I guess this is my attempt to work around that.

Lindamilla

7/31/2025 08:44:04 am

Your storytelling is captivating, and your writing style has a natural flow that keeps the reader engaged. I truly enjoyed reviewing your work and appreciated the creativity and depth in your ideas. With some fine-tuning on grammar and structure, your pieces have the potential to shine even brighter. You have a distinct voice as a writer, and I would be delighted to explore the possibility of working together to refine and elevate your future projects.

Mark

7/31/2025 08:57:52 am

Thank you, Barry. I am good at exposing the spelling errors that others miss. I find spelling errors in 95% of the published books I read. Once a year, I find a book without spelling errors that jump off the page at me. That average has held for eleven years in a row.

In one way, your writing technique is unusual for a lot of writers because you sit down to write every day. I have heard so many writers say they can't write until they feel inspired to write. It is a contentious topic at times for some writers. For me it makes sense to sit down and write if you want to be a writer. If you don't feel inspired about a particular topic, write about something else. I see no disadvantage to having multiple writing projects at hand.

in that sense, writing is easier than speaking because you can use beta readers, critique groups or writing partners to preview a story. You are wise to have your wife preview your speech.

We had a visitor join us. I was hoping she had a question for us, but alas it doesn't seem like it.

New questions.

Who designed the cover of your book? Feel free to drop a copy-and-paste link if appropriate.

How many drafts did the cover go through?

Barry Maher link

7/31/2025 12:31:27 pm

The current cover of "Legend" was designed by the second publisher. I have no idea who did it for them but I really like it. I hated the cover of the initial Steiner Books edition.

The publisher of my next book had his artist design a cover and ran it by me for approval. I suggested a couple of small changes then approved it. I didn't love it,but it was okay.

Several weeks later, I got an email from their CEO out of nowhere. He'd decided on his own that the cover wasn't of a high enouch quality for the book and was having it redone. The new cover is much better. And that's the kind of publisher you want to have.

Incidentally, I appreciate Lindamilla offering to fine tune my grammar. For the most part, I write in colloquial American English. I don't want the grammar to call attention to itself and stop the reader, as it would if I wrote something grammatically correct like, "It is I," rather than "It's me."

I do occasionally violate my own rule on that with the subjunctive. In a column a couple of weeks back I wrote, correctly, "If he were . . ." An initial reader wanted me to change it to "If he was . . ." That's not only incorrect given the context of the sentence, it was grating to me. But to make it more colloquial I went with "was." My editor is another English major, so I included an note explaining why I'd done it and telling her she could do whatever she wanted to it. She changed it back to "were."

This may not be the most fascinating story I've ever told but wait to you see the movie version.

Mark

7/31/2025 01:51:15 pm

Covers are important! No question. With nearly two million books published a year on Amazon, it is not getting easier to get your book noticed. Good on that CEO. He made a good choice.

Precisely correct grammar doesn't always fit well in a novel. If a reader stumbles over grammar or spelling, they can slip out of the author's magic spell.
It is I sounds rather pretentious to my ear as it does yours.

There is a new indie movie out called Rebel With a Clause. It's about a grammarian who sets up a table in a busy place offering to solve grammar issues on the spot. I hope I get to see it, but It will have to get as close as Orlando before I make the trip.

New questions.

At first glance, the cover seems obvious, but I frequently miss a detail or two.

What do the elements on the cover represent?

Barry Maher link

7/31/2025 02:41:19 pm

To me, it's The City and a folker, probably the hero.

On the subject of grammar, here's a column I wrote atwhile back. Feel free to cut or edit it if you like.

I have no facility with languages. I’m incoherent in Latin, French, Spanish and, far too often, in English, the language I was born into. If people got to choose their native language, I doubt many of us would pick English. The grammar is illogical, the spelling demented. But it’s not like two year olds have the option to learn Spanish or Esperanto or Klingon.

English—or at least the way we interact with it—is another slightly off-kilter adventure. For example, “It is I” is grammatically correct, but it’s also the answer to the question, “Who sounds like a pompous fool?” And—sorry—pronouncing the T in “often” doesn’t make you appear educated. At least not to people who spend their time pontificating about stuff like that—other people, not me. I could care less, a phrase we say to mean “I couldn’t care less.” However, if you wake up one morning and find yourself in the year 1452, “of-ten” is the correct pronunciation. Back then they also said “lisnen” which those who could spell spelled as “listnen” though they never pronounced the “t”, which we now do, though we’ve dropped the first “n”. Got it? This is all going to be on the mid-term.

Much of what people think they know about grammar is closer to superstition. For example, the idea that you shouldn’t split infinities. If you don’t know what a split infinitive is, congratulations! And don’t worry about it. You can use that area of your brain for storing something more useful. Like the square root of pi (approximately 1.77724538). If you do know what a split-infinitive is, try to forget it. And again, don’t worry about it. I know Shakespeare didn’t split infinitives. But Shakespeare didn’t bathe that often either. So you might not want to make him your role model.

And if you’ve spent your writing life torturing innocent sentences to avoid ending them with a proposition, I can only ask, what for? You should find a support group. Or just listen to Churchill, who called it, “pedantry up with which I will not put.” Once his words got out, a generation of British grammar teachers sunk into lives of despair and dissipation.

Then there are the plurals. The plural of mouse is mice. The plural of house is houses and the plural of moose is of course . . . No one actually knows. So a moose stampede is simply “MOOSE! RUN!”

More than a hundred English nouns have irregular plurals.
Spelling is even more annoying. “Vittal” is spelled v-i-c-t-u-a-l. “hiccup” is spelled H-i-c-c-o-u-g-h and “relief” is simply spelled wrong: releif, releaf, releef and—occasionally, for those over fifty—rolaids. I could fill pages with words that most of us can’t spell. And I’m not talking about National Spelling Bee words like zugzwang. (I don’t know what it means either, but it’s fun to say. Zugzwang!) I’m talking about everyday household words like calendar and acquire and svarabhakti (my household may be somewhat different than yours.)

It’s as if English were (was?)* designed to be a language you almost had to be born into. Even then, you need years of training to use it in a way that identifies you as “educated.” As James Harbeck wrote, “We’ve taken a useful tool and turned it into a social filter.” Esperanto anyone?

* “were,” subjunctive mood for hypotheticals; “was,” indicative mood for less hypothetical, more possible, situations. Which one is appropriate for this sentence depends upon your view of history and your paranoia.

Copyright 2025 Creators Syndicate. Used by permission.
I have no facility with languages. I’m incoherent in Latin, French, Spanish and, far too often, in English, the language I was born into. If people got to choose their native language, I doubt many of us would pick English. The grammar is illogical, the spelling demented. But it’s not like two year olds have the option to learn Spanish or Esperanto or Klingon.
English—or at least the way we interact with it—is another slightly off-kilter adventure. For example, “It is I” is grammatically correct, but it’s also the answer to the question, “Who sounds like a pompous fool?” And—sorry—pronouncing the T in “often” doesn’t make you appear educated. At least not to people who spend their time pontificating about stuff like that—other people, not me. I could care less, a phrase we say to mean “I couldn’t care less.” However, if you wake up one morning and find yourself

Mark

7/31/2025 03:19:03 pm

I don't know where to start! I am laughing and horrified at the same time. I am not going to touch it. It shall remain in all of its glory.

I did enjoy it and read it several times.

New questions.

Was it hard to come up with the title?

What was the process?

Barry Maher link

7/31/2025 04:42:02 pm

Titles are tough. "Legend" had no title for most of its early drafts. I was going to call it "The City" for a quite a while.

But the nature of reality and the concept of truth is central to the story. Eventually, I came up with the idea of the whole story being related by a machine, removing the story itself one more level from reality. Calling it "Legend" gave the story even more removal. It's a legend, told by a machine about a world, where reality itself is uncertain. It's a hall of mirrors.

Mark

7/31/2025 06:19:10 pm

The City would have been a pretty good title. I lived in San Francisco before I got married. A lot of people worked in San Francisco but lived in the suburbs. Most people called it The City or San Francisco. Only tourists called it Frisco. They outed themselves instantly by doing that. I discovered that most inhabitants in and around a major metropolis referred to the sprawling monster as The City.

It didn't take more than a few pages before I forgot the story was being told by a door. I thought it was so curious that a door was telling the tale when I started reading it made me more eager to read the story.

New questions.

Were the character names difficult to develop?

How did you choose them?

Barry Maher link

8/1/2025 09:57:24 am

The character's full names had to fit the format of the world they were inhabiting. So that determined them to a certain extent. But the short form of their names, Martin and Gena, I knew the instant I met each character. Their names were a key part of who they were. To me (if no one else) Martin was the Platonic ideal of what a Martin should be. Gena was the ideal of a Gena.

As for the characters themselves, I started out with an idea of each of them. But the story and things that happened to them actually did most of the development organically, showing me and the reader, I hope, who they were.

And of course, the extreme environment and the extreme events they overcame didn't just reveal who they were. It changed them as well. So they were very different people at the end of the story than they were at the beginning.

I was probably somewhat different myself by the end of the story.

Mark

8/1/2025 10:55:31 am

I find that fascinating. Names are important in a story, no question. I don't recall anyone mentioning that a character's name fit them so perfectly. Sometimes, authors invent names for a story set in a future or another world. As long as there aren't too many characters, I don't have a problem remembering each name that represents the different characters.

Regardless of the plot, readers expect to see at least one character changed by the events they encounter. If the protagonist doesn't overcome the odds, readers are likely to feel let down. In our heart of hearts, we expect justice to triumph over evil.

I think writing does change the author and reading changes the reader, but not necessarily in the same degree.

New questions.

Have you ever done NaNoWriMo, National November Writing Month?

If you have, what kind of preparation do you do before it starts?

Barry Maher link

8/1/2025 01:10:51 pm

No, I've never done NaNoWriMo. I don't want to say anything disparaging about it, and it might be fun to try. But it's not something I've ever thought would greatly benefit me. If I ever wanted to change my writing habits or if I thought I was stuck, I'd try to work it out on a project I was already working on or one I was planning on working on. I don't have time to set aside a month to basically practice writing. I practice writing every day while I'm writing.

As I've said, writing to me is putting your butt in the chair and doing the work. Some days it goes better than others. But you do it as best you can on any given day. Maybe you rewrite it today. Maybe you rewrite it tomorrow. Maybe you rewrite it when you go through the next full draft. Maybe all three. But I don't think I've ever written a passage of any length that made it to the final draft exactly, word for word, as it was originally written.

That's one of the joys of working on a computer. Yes, the temptation is to do too much instant revision and interrupt the flow of your writing. But I'm old enough to remember writing on a typewriter. I used to use so much white-out to avoid having to fully retype the page that I'd get giddy from smelling it. Now at least I get to write sober.

Mark

8/1/2025 02:03:58 pm

The old Wite-Out hangover, good times. ;-)

I remember before correction fluid became popular. I started a typing class as a freshman in high school but was forced to drop out after I broke my wrist. The first book I proofread was a carbon copy I received by snail mail.

NaNoWriMo closed a couple of years ago due to its controversial choice of accepting AI-written manuscripts, or so I heard. I don't know the official reason. I think I will remove the questions from my list.

New questions.

Have you done any ghostwriting?

If not, would you try it if someone wanted to hire you?

Barry Maher link

8/1/2025 02:36:22 pm

No, I haven't done any ghostwriting. I was involved with one project as a possible ghostwriter before the pandemic. It looked promising but ultimately the man I would have been partnering with became too reticent about too many key details for it to be successful. So I backed out.

I would consider it again. But it would have to be a fascinating project and I would have to have extraordinary access to the necessary information.

Mark

8/1/2025 04:06:11 pm

That would be a difficult situation to ghostwrite a book without the necessary information. I think you made a wise decision.

New question.

What do you think of the current controversy regarding AI, Artificial Intelligence and books?

Barry Maher link

8/1/2025 04:37:34 pm

I think that unfortunately there may come a day when much mass entertainment is the product of AI. We're nowhere near that point yet. But at some poiint AI may be good enough at imitation to create a sitcom or even a run of the mill novel. But it would be basically imitation. It doesn't feel. it isn't self-aware. I don't see it creating any new human insights. I don't see that it's ever going to be Proust or Shakespeare. I just hope it doesn't put Barry Maher out of work.

Mark

8/1/2025 05:46:52 pm

Your fans are glad you are still writing.

Yes, AI regurgitates what it has read, and it has read nearly everything written. It can copy a particular writing style and produce material that reads similar to that style. That's it so far. Amazon had to limit authors to uploading only three books a day a little while ago. Authors are required to disclose if AI produced their book. I haven't seen any disclosures to that effect, but I confess I forget to look when I am shopping for a book.

New question.

Did you use AI in any of your writing or planning for your books? I am not including research in this question because most of the major browsers have embedded AI in the browser.

Barry Maher link

8/1/2025 09:17:38 pm

I'd actually never used AI for anything until the other day I tried it to create the image of a character. One I didn't particularly like. And later that day I used it as a thesaurus. It gave me the exact same words the online thesaurus did and told me a story as well which just got in my way.

Mark

8/2/2025 07:43:37 am

I am not surprised by your answer. I used AI late last year to reword some of my tweets. I wound up modifying most of the suggestions. I recently used Copilot to sort through software I am thinking of getting. That went well. It provided a printable step-by-step process to achieve my goal. Did I need the guide? No, I wanted to see how well it created the list. It did a good job of that. Will I use it in proofreading? No.

Since the large language models of AI have read pretty much everything on the internet and in books, I do not expect it to be a perfect speller because 95% of books have spelling errors in them. My website was read over a thousand times by bots over several days a couple of years ago. That really skewed my stats for a month.

New questions.

Have you encountered a troll reviewing one of your books?

How did you handle it?

Barry Maher link

8/2/2025 12:45:20 pm

One of the facts of life about putting yourself out there in any form is that you're going to encounter crticism. I mentioned the two star review "Legend" got from a gentleman who didn't like all the description. To him, that was telling not showing, which is really not what the phrase means at all. On the other hand most reviewers, like yourself, considered the description one of the book's strengths. My guess is he was absolutely sincere, not really a troll. The cliche is true. You can't please all the people all the time. And you shouldn't really try.

Right now, I guess I should be mentally preparing. The "The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon" has gotten a great deal of advance praise, but it's going to be controversial. There are likely to be people who don't get it or who get it and don't care for it. That goes with the territory. You just have to try to separate what's valid and valuable, what you can and should be learning from, from what's misdirected. Or from what's perfectly valid but refers to something that you did deliberately and for good reason.

It doesn't have to do with my writing but here's the story of my worst troll encounter. Again feel free to edit or cut it out entirely.

Recently, I did something despicable. Apparently.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were reportedly moving from the Santa Barbara area, and a British reporter wanted a comment about them. I said, “I don’t know them. I live down the road in a considerably cheaper neighborhood. Since we never see them, local opinion seems to mirror U.S. opinion in general. Some people seem to like them no matter what, others are unimpressed by the soap opera or simply sick of hearing about them.” Just my quick take on local sentiment.

The first story appeared in The Mirror, the British tabloid. The headline read: EXCLUSIVE: Meghan and Harry “close to selling £11 million home as neighbours are sick of them.”

The “neighbor” in question was one Barry Maher. Me. The only “neighbor” in the article.

The distinction between “sick of hearing about them” and “sick of them” is the distinction between journalism and whatever this was. Then The News International wrote, “Speaking to the Mirror, PR and communication expert Barry Maher, who resides in the same area, revealed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are never seen at their property.”

Meghan and Harry have seven acres. (I googled it.) They could be cavorting around the property with Anastasia Romanov, the lost tribes of Israel and Jo-Jo the Dog-faced Boy, and I couldn’t see any of it from where I live.

In The Royal Observer, the neighbors (me) were exhausted by the royals’ “antics.” BNN wrote, “Barry Maher paints a picture of a community divided.” WP Media reported, “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle plan Montecito exit amid neighborhood discontent.” (Again, just me.)

Sorry, Meghan. Sorry, Harry. Please don’t sell your cozy little home because of me. Think of young Archie and poor little Lilibet. Think of trying to scrape by without sixteen bathrooms! (Google, again.)

As the story traveled, so did my credentials. Sometimes I was simply “local resident Barry Maher.” Usually I was given some dubious authority. “Barry Maher who regularly appears on top TV programmes.” (Really?) Or “Barry Maher, a PR and communication whizz.”

The Royal Observer elevated me to “royal expert Barry Maher.” And they should know, observing royals as they apparently do. By the time the story got to Pakistani TV—Pakistani TV! Are you freaking kidding me?—I was “renowned royal expert Barry Maher.” All I know about royalty is that we fought a war to get rid of them. Obviously it didn’t take. But apparently if the neighbors get discontented enough, the royals might just leave on their own.

And in this case, the neighbors (or as I like to call them, me) were becoming more aggressive. GBUK Royals turned my quote into, “’We are sick and tired of you’ neighbours ask Sussex to depart.” In What’s Up Today, Meghan and Harry were “forced to sell $11M home over angry neighbors.”

The story circled the globe. The only constants were “Barry Maher,” and “Meghan and Harry.” (It’s almost always “Meghan and Harry,” seldom “Harry and Meghan.” If you think I’m going to comment on that, you haven’t been paying attention.)

In the U.S.A., MSN downgraded me from “royal expert” to “tabloid informant.” That probably killed any chance of my alma mater ever naming a library after me. Or even admitting I went there

So I’m sorry Meghan. I’m sorry Harry. I really am. If it’s any consolation, I’m getting out of the renowned royal expert business. Now t

Still Barry

8/2/2025 01:42:37 pm

This website cut me off; there must be a word limit. Here is the rest of what I wanted to say:
Now that articles have started attributing my remarks to “an insider,” I feel like I’m practically one of the family. Which would be fitting punishment for my sins.

Mark

8/2/2025 02:11:26 pm

Wow! That is a fabulous way to conclude your story about trolls. I quite like it. All that is missing you being kidnapped by MI-6 and interrogated.

My wife has a lot of interest in the Royals, though she thinks most of the current batch barely have any common sense. She was and is a big fan of Queen Elizabeth. That woman has my respect, also. The Brits can keep their royals for all I care. They still put their pants on one leg at a time.

New question.

What was the first paying job you worked as a kid, and how old were you?

Barry Maher link

8/2/2025 02:33:44 pm

I was one of those annoying kids who went through the neighborhood hawking greeting cards to earn cash and prizes. I was probably about eight. Kids could do that back then. By eleven, I was shovelling snow and mowing people's lawns. My first real job with a paycheck was at sixteen, working with a crew of kids after school and on weekends, generating leads for salesmen (they were all male) who were selling magazine subscription packages. They'd drive us into various neightborhoods around Boston and we'd go house to house, apartment to apartment. I was still annoying people but my territory had gotten much larger.

Mark

8/2/2025 04:19:13 pm

I did the greeting card thing also. We lived in a rural area, and there were not many neighbors close by. So I hit up relatives. When I was 13, I picked strawberries and beans for several summers. Good times.

New questions.

Have you entered any writing contests?

Have you won awards of any kind for your writing?

Barry Maher link

8/2/2025 06:11:19 pm

Nice to meet a fellow greeting card veteran.

No I've never entered a writing contest. In my misspent youth I was, however, an award-winning poet.The award was five copies of a xeroxed "literary" publication. Not quite the Nobel prize.

I have been notified by my current publisher that they intend to enter "The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon" in several contests. So my chances of winning a contest may be at least slightly better than in previous years when I never entered. Maybe one of them will Xerox me a trophy.

Mark

8/2/2025 07:18:32 pm

I think there is more money to be made writing greeting cards than selling them door to door.

Just like a lottery ticket. You have zero chance of winning if you don't buy one, and maybe 1/13,983,316th of a chance to win the top prize in a lottery, or less. Having read Legend and knowing you are a funny writer, I think your odds are much better than the lottery.

New question.

Among present or past family members and friends, how many are or have been writers or authors?

Barry Maher link

8/3/2025 07:18:00 am

Interesting question. Not that they haven't all been interesting of course, but I've been interviewed a lot and I've never been asked that before.

Among my relatives. That would be none, zero. Among my closest friends over the course of my entire lifetime, that would be almost none. A couple of close friends from college ended up as managing editors of major newspapers. So they were journalists before going over to the dark side. One of my oldest friends has a master's in literature. So I guess that's close. But that's about it.

Mark

8/3/2025 07:24:34 am

Score one for the Hyper-Speller! I am glad you are enjoying this process.

Many authors have given me a similar answer. Not many have family or friends who write. If a person doesn't write, I wonder why they would get a master's degree in literature.

New question.

Is there anyone you know who might claim you as their inspiration for writing?

James Jacobs link

8/3/2025 09:12:41 am

My first boyhood job was a paper route. Most people don't even know what that is anymore.

Mark

8/3/2025 02:18:53 pm

Welcome, James. I helped a friend with his paper route in the small town we lived in. I well know what that is. We had a small printer/publisher in our small town. He mailed the weekly paper out to local customers and many who didn't live in town. I addressed those papers with a stamping machine. There was a metal address plate for each customer.

Do you have a question for Barry? I will entertain a question also.

Barry Maher link

8/3/2025 01:40:24 pm

Why would a person who doesn't write get a Masters in literature? I have no idea. I'm not sure why my friend went after his masters. I suspect he was hoping to teach at the college level but burned out before getting his doctorate. His first job after the M.A. was working in a bar, which was closer to his true love. And later he became the head of a nonprofit. But one, I suppose, who can carry on an in-depth conversation on "finnegan's Wake." I'm sure that came in very handy at their board meetings.

Is there anyone who claims me as their inspiration for writing? Another great question. I couldn't even get one of my best friends, a guy with a M.A. in Literature, to want to write. So no, not in the sense you mean.

My nonfiction has inspired any number of columns, writers passing on the ideas. As a columnist, the despert search for column ideas. I've also spoken at several writers' conferences. People have told me the session inspired them, which it was designed to do. But that's not the same as someone reading "Legend" and being inspired to write. If anyone knew how difficult it was to write "Legend" it might inspire them to take up something easy like quantum physics or professional bull riding.

Mark

8/3/2025 02:28:05 pm

Bull riding only lasts for a few seconds. Writing a good book takes a bit longer. Quantum physics is always changing, a lot like the writing market.

Heading up a non-profit probably has a longer retention rate than asking, "Would you like fries with that?"

I hope James put his email in the comment registration form, then he will see my reply.

New question.

I noticed that your book is not in Kindle Unlimited. Is there a reason for that?

Barry Maher link

8/3/2025 03:35:23 pm

Yes, there's an excellent reason "Legend" is not in Kindle Unlimited. It's because I'm an idiot. The last publisher didn't have any of their books in Kindle Unlimited. My understanding is to do Kindle Unlimited, you have to agree to sell nowhere else but Amazon. Lindsfarne sells heavily through their catalogue and website and probably several other places.

I just got back the rights to "Legend" and recently finished getting LightnightSource to transfer everything to my account--I hope. To be honest, I hadn't even thought of Kindle Unlimited until a clever intervewer happened to mention it this morning.

Mark

8/3/2025 06:17:00 pm

The intellectual property (IP) rights are an author's gold mine. There are so many rights available to an author and just as many for each other country an author sells their book in.

Amazon does require an exclusive license for Kindle Unlimited, and an author gets paid a fraction of a penny for each page read. Amazon own Goodreads, and they have an agreement with Ingram and Barnes and Noble to list books published through KDP and the author chooses expanded distribution.

I found your book on Goodreads and Barnes and Noble. Somebody made the right choice there.

New questions.

What is your favorite food and beverage?

What is your least favorite food and beverage?

Barry Maher link

8/3/2025 07:26:03 pm

Least favorite is probably easier. Not a big fan of fishy tasting fish or raw fish like sushi.Least favorite drink is that ultra processed shelf stable milk. Terrible.

My favoirte beverage is Guinness I'm lucky in that I like all kinds of food. But my favorite single food would mbe lasagna. In fact, here's a column I did called Lasgna as a Sacrament.

I never met him, though he lived the last days of his life directly across the street from me. I did meet his wife once, at a neighborhood pot luck. She’d brought two huge serving trays of lasagna: by far the biggest and most popular contribution. She seemed nice in the way that strangers who bathe and speak rationally and bring you lasagna seem nice. For all I knew, she could have been a Satanist or a cannibal or—worse—a bagpipe aficionado, but none of that seemed likely. At one point I had thought I’d heard bagpipes over there, but maybe someone had simply stepped on a cat.

Like everyone in town, I’d eaten at their restaurant, Arnoldi’s. The place had a casual, friendly feel to it. And once at Arnoldi’s—when the stars aligned, or the culinary gods decided to reward me for years if eating broccoli like a responsible adult—I got the single best lasagna I’ve ever tasted. And I’ve tasted a lot of spectaculaar lasagna. I almost had a Sicilian mother-in-law, and Lasagna was her specialty. She probably served it to celebrate the end of the engagement.

Death can sneak up on you, but fire engines can’t. The one bringing the paramedics to our neighbors’ home pulled in right below our balcony. We didn’t know then that a mutual friend was over there desperately performing CPR. I learned my neighbor’s name was David Peri when I learned he’d died.

After that, looking out at the view David no longer shared, I’d often notice additional cars at the Peri home—reminding me of frantic journeys, desperate vigils. Dread. As what had seemed solid, foundational, almost eternal, changed forever.

The crowd at David’s funeral overflowed the church. I’m expecting 97 people at mine—but only if I die skydiving with Taylor Swift on national TV.

David had 682 Facebook friends. His last post, “Happy birthday to my super wife,” got 131 likes. I almost “liked” it myself. Because I did actually like it. But that seemed like claiming a connection I hadn’t earned, and I already felt like an intruder.

The previous post was a shot of “our fabulous grandchildren.” Ten of them. Below that was a composite photo of 26 other kids. A click translated the Hebrew text to, “These are the kidnapped children. Share so the world can see.” Twenty-six children. Twenty-six precious, miraculous, fragile universes—threatened.

David Peri couldn’t have had a smaller part in my life. Smaller even than the strangers I pass on my neighborhood walks. At least with them I share a perfunctory “hi,” maybe even a few words as I struggle to keep their dog’s nose out of my crotch. David was more like the people I pass on a busy day downtown—just too many of them to acknowledge.

“If every rock was a diamond, diamonds would be as worthless as rocks.” I’m not sure who said that. It might have been me. In any case, it doesn’t apply here. Because, there are two truths I want to hang onto about David Peri. First, he had something—I’m not sure what—to do with me having the greatest lasagna of my life. A positively transcendental lasagna.

Second, he was one of a kind. People aren’t rocks. (You can quote me on that.) We can’t acknowledge them all. We can’t even begin to register most of them. But somehow we have to value them. Because, every one we lose is a diminishment, a lost universe. And whether we know it or not they all touch us.

Thanks for that lasagna, David. It was a blessing.

Mark

8/4/2025 08:48:37 am

Thank you for sharing the column about David's lasagna. Quite entertaining, and I love lasagna also.

I like almost every food out there. My list of foods I don't like is short. Cottage cheese is my least favorite food unless it is in lasagna in small quantities. I am not fond of rutabagas and eggplant, though I have eaten both as a child. Haggis sounds very unappetizing.

New questions.

Have you ever gone through the query process?

Were you seeking an agent or submitting directly to publishers, and why did you choose that path?

Barry Maher link

8/4/2025 01:00:26 pm

Yes, I have.

I ended up tossing my first idea for a bestselling, critically acclaimed novel. 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. Legend. took two years. Then, I started querying. With no real track record, I couldn’t get a single agent to even 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 querying publishers directly, 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 Gena”—“ Gena? Who’s black?”—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. Helpful Hint: If your novel is just making you too much money, change the cover and call it an allegory. Problem solved.

I also queried for my first agent. Who sold my first nonfiction book. And brought the second one to me. We had a book to book deal. So there was no problem when my next agent read an article about me and asked if I’d front for a book he was flogging. That didn’t work out. But his next question was “Do you have any book ideas?” I did. That was my third nonfiction book.

My next book didn’t have an agent. McGraw Hill came to me. The editor had seen either an article I’d written or article about me. Which taught me that, if at all possible, the best way to query is not to be the querier but the queried. When I was speaking full time and editors knew I had a platform, I was literally told “We’ll publish anything you want to write.”

Now of course as a part time speaker, full time writer—in other words doing what I actually want to do—I had my marketing guy query one carefully selected publisher. And hat’s how we placed “The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon.”

Mark

8/4/2025 03:31:20 pm

That story is so wild, it must be true. I am glad I asked that question.

The one thing every publisher worries the most about is money. Will this book make enough money so I can publish another book? Thanks to Amazon, most publishers are one failure-to-launch book away from turning off the lights permanently.

The author's platform is important as your story proves handily. There are publishers out there who won't even consider a book unless the author has a mailing list of hundreds, and some require thousands of subscribers. That mailing list represents a good number of guaranteed sales in the publisher's mind.

Last questions.

What do you think of the query process now?

Will you ever query a manuscript again?

Barry Maher link

8/4/2025 04:09:33 pm

Querying is obviously tough. And it takes a lot of time. For "The Great Dick" I'm working with Crystal Lake Publishing, a small independent house that specializes in horror. I've worked with seven or eight publishers of all sizes. From Random House to Lindisfarne Publications. So far, Crystal Lake is BY FAR the most repsonsive any of them. And the author's share is far better. And it took my marketing guy one email to get the deal. So nowadays there's always the option to work with publishers like that or to self publish. I don't know if I'll ever bother to query again. Only if I think I've got an offer so strong they can't refuse. But, again, I'd rather have them coming to me if I can manage it.

Mark

8/4/2025 06:03:34 pm

Querying is so hard! I have heard more sad stories about that than I ever wanted to. Many authors have been hoodwinked into a bad contract. The scammers depend on the starry-eyed feeling that so many authors have when they think they are hitting the big time.

I keep telling authors to read the Writer Beware blog by Victoria Strauss. She is quite knowledgeable about the scams the crooks are running.

I have a new promotion starting tomorrow. I want to thank you for hiring me to help promote your book. It was an amazing read.
You are a very funny guy, and I have enjoyed our chat so much.

Until next time, keep on writing.

Barry Maher

8/5/2025 07:43:32 am

It was my pleasure, Mark. And it really was a pleasure. This is a wonderful service you provide, and I hope more people tune in to it.

Legend by Barry Maher

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