‘As all writers know, the bio is the most important part of any book’

Well, I did it.

I’ve moved from being the ubiquitous “I’m writing a book” Irish person to one of those who have actually had one published.

And it’s done pretty well. But yet I feel disappointed, upset even. I feel I have messed up and wasted an opportunity– one I have been planning for decades.

Let me explain. The book is true crime, non-fiction. It’s called Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer. It’s the story of Dr Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia doctor who killed hundreds, perhaps thousands of babies, born alive at his “House of Horrors” abortion clinic.

It was launched just as America ushered in the most pro-life presidential administration in its history and the possibility that a number of retirements could see the appointment of a majority anti-abortion Supreme Court.

There is a hunger for abortion stories in the US at the moment, and Gosnell has benefitted. It immediately hit number three on Amazon’s bestsellers list in its first week. According to Publishers Weekly, the industry bible, the hard sales figures showed Gosnell should have been the number four on the New York Times non-fiction, hardback bestsellers list.

But it wasn’t. It turns out that the New York Times Best Sellers list is not actually a list of the nation’s bestsellers. In reality, there are the actual sales, but then the New York Times has a committee that looks at the “context” of each sale. There are consistent allegations that this “context” excludes books that challenge liberal assumptions. According to the newspaper, the bestsellers list is actually an assessment by the committee of “what books are the most broadly popular at that time”.

In other words, when it wants to tell us what book we should read, then the New York Times hates the popular vote and just loves the electoral college (as long as it is a New York Times electoral college).

But this is not what upsets me.

No, it’s killing me that in the mad rush just before publication, I discovered a number of passages in the book that belonged in a previous draft. It was a mad scramble to correct the information, and part of the mad scramble was also to correct an out-of-date, slightly mangled bio that would appear on the cover.

Now as all writers know, the bio is the most important part of any book. It certainly has the largest readership. How many times have you lifted a book, read the bio, a bit of the cover, and then put it down. And how many times have you read the author’s bio, bought a book, and never read the book? So the bio has a huge readership – a multiple of actual book sales – which is why it is so important that you use it to bolster your ego, avenge petty slights, and impress those you want to impress.

I can’t be the only person who always looked enviously at the information carried, apparently casually, in these bios. The colleges they attended, the inspirational parents they had, the beautiful wives, children and dogs that now give them the love and inspiration that makes everything else unimportant. But there was one phrase that I have always envied and coveted. I write of course about the “divides his time between”.

It always comes at the end of these wonderful lives summed up in a few hundred words. They kick you to the ground with the calibre of the colleges they attended, or the prisons they’ve been in, or the otherwise interesting lives they led, and then when you feel particularly inadequate, they twist the knife. John Smith divides his time between north London and Tuscany. Mary Jones divides her time between Edinburgh and Buenos Aires.

Let me give you some context. I was brought up in a field, in Northern Ireland, in Tyrone, in the 1980s. I divided my time between my bedroom and the TV. Outside it was always dark and raining and very windy. I’m sure there must have been some sunshine, a summer or two, but if there was I don’t remember it in Northern Ireland, in Tyrone, in the 1980s. In the field.

But I did read a lot and looked at book covers a lot, and there were a lot of people dividing their time between very glamorous places. Since then I’ve dreamed of dividing my time between places, but I’ve particularly fantasised about being able to say it on the cover of a book I’ve written – or just putting it anywhere in print.

And now I live in Los Angeles and two years ago bought a cottage in the west of Ireland. (Well, ok, it’s actually a dormer bungalow built at the height of the Celtic Tiger whose heating system was so dodgy that no local plumber would service it because “I would worry about a manslaughter charge down the line”.)

But it’s a dwelling. In a different country from my main dwelling. And I have a book, and that book has, of course, a book jacket. It was my moment. I could finally have those lines. That’ll show them.

But it wasn't to be. Because of the technical problems, I literally had moments to spare to correct a mangled bio. There was no time to salve my bitterness and neurosis. I rushed out a straightforward, vanilla bio. Despite the New York Times fiddling the figures, the book eventually became a bestseller (No 13 on the combined ebook and hardback list - since you ask). But I feel a failure. None of the readers will know what I really want them to know. Unless they read to the end of this piece.
Phelim McAleer is the co-author of Gosnell: The Untold Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer. He divides..(Editor's note – this piece has been edited due to space constraints)