Frequently Asked Questions

How did you start writing parodies?
Iíve been doing it since I was eight or nine, but I got really serious about it in college, at The Yale Record. In America there is a tradition of college humor magazines; these are published--I use the term incredibly loosely--by students and distributed on campuses. Parody, and specifically an unruly type of it, is a staple at The Record and places like it. (The Onion, for example, started as the college humor magazine of the University of Wisconsin.) 

Who or what were your influences?
I grew up reading MAD Magazine and National Lampoon. Monty Python was huge, too, and I adored it (especially the LPs). Python was my gateway into other British comedy like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Peter Sellers, and The Goons.  

How many Barry Trotter books have been sold?
Hard to say, but my best guess is about 700,000. Barry's irritated readers in the US, the UK, Australia, Germany, Taiwan, China, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Brazil, Sweden, Russia and Estonia. This year, ol' Bar will infest Finland, France, and Korea as well--unless the U.N. intervenes for humanitarian reasons. Poop jokes cross all national boundaries. 

Has Barry Trotter's success surprised you?
Absolutely. As any author will tell you, just getting something published is a triumph. Many, many good books never catch on for a million different reasons. When one does--particularly in something as unpredictable as humor--the only appropriate response is babbling gratitude. And purchasing a fleet of solid-gold hovercrafts. 

Have you ever heard from J. K. Rowling?
Nope; I'm sure she has much better things to do. Remember, every two years or so, the fate of the entire world's publishing industry is placed on her poor shoulders! I hope that she takes the Trotter series as the compliment I mean it to be. The fact that I havenít been sued suggests that perhaps that is so, or perhaps her desk is just as messy as mine is. 

Why did you decide to parody Harry Potter?
My wife, a hardened reader of fantasy, took a few HP books on vacation in 2000; I stole her copies, as I often do--sheís my literary taster for such stuff. I loved 'em. I saw immediately that they were extremely well-crafted, entertaining books with genuine humor in them. The Potter books called to mind so many of the authors that I had enjoyed as a kid--T.H. White, Roald Dahl, others. Once I saw that JKR had created a rich, logically consistent world, the presence of such a massive audience convinced me that someone would attempt a parody. The American media is relentlessly consuming itself, with sequels and prequels and remakes and "Cinderella, only this time as a mermaid" or "Snow White as a African-American girl from the projects." In this environment, an HP parody was inevitable. Since I really liked Rowling's books, and had seen what awful crap that the American publishing business calls "parody," I felt obligated to try to write a spoof worthy of the originals. And, obviously, I thought there might be a few dollars in it, if I didn't end up having to spend the next five years in court.

Was it hard to parody Harry Potter?
Yep. Rowling's books present certain challenges to the professional wiseacre. First, the Potter books are funny, and its much easier to parody something that takes itself seriously (like Tolkein, for example). Second, the audience for the Potter books is very diverse, and a parody written for American ten-year-olds is different from one aimed at Scottish 40-year-olds. My solution was to build in several simultaneous levels of humor, and hope that each group would find something to laugh at. It's a technique I haven't seen before, but I think I pull it off decently well. 

I heard you had to self-publish the first Barry Trotter. Is that true?
I self-published the first book after a bunch of big U.S. publishers passed on it. They kept saying, "This is funny, but weíre afraid of getting sued." I didn't have huge commercial hopes for Barry, since I had self-published parodies before and lost a lot of money. But with Barry, I felt almost belligerent: Rowling's books deserved a well-crafted parody, and freedom of speech doesn't mean anything unless individual citizens actually use it. It was the book itself, but also the principle of the thing, too. Amazingly, Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized Paro dy took off right from the beginning. After I self-published it in December 2001, Simon and Schuster published a US edition in July 2002, and Orion's UK edition (published as "Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody") came out in September 2002 and stayed on the bestseller lists for six months. Or maybe it was just a weirdly persistent misprint. 

I want to self-publish my book. Where should I do it?
I used Lightning Source, Inc., a division of Ingram. Ingram's a big book wholesaler, which means that if you use LSI to print your books, youíll be listed in the Ingram database, so people can go to bookstores and ask for your book just as easily if it were published by a big company. Lightning Source isn't a publisher, nor will it edit your books, but it will take a computer file and print a book from it--check it out here. A word of warning, however: they're from Tennessee and may get mad if you bring up the Civil War.

What do you think of the Harry Potter movies?
I always see 'em, and think they're fine, but they canít compare to the richness of the books. There can be an element of strip-mining to what Hollywood does, because ours is such a picture-dominated culture. When there is a movie made of a book, the movie becomes the dominant form; it can replace the book. As somebody who loves books, that worries me. But Harry Potter in print seems to be thriving, thankfully. 

Is there ever going to be a Barry Trotter movie?
Who knows? But it probably wouldn't be as dirty as whatever you're imagining.

Will there be more Barry Trotter books?
I'm so glad you asked! The third book, "Barry Trotter and the Dead Horse" is going to appear in the United Kingdom in October 2004. (You can order it from Amazon.co.uk here.) At least that's what they tell me; living here in the States means that I'm a bit out of the loop. Maybe "publishing" in this case really means "a massive bonfire in some vacant lot."

Has anyone ever sent in the clip-out sheet at the back of the first book?
Only one person, and I think she was drunk. 

Are you working on other books?
They're working on me, more like. I am in the middle of a parody of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and have just finished a comic novel which is like the movie "Animal House" meets P.G. Wodehouse. 

Whom would you prefer to meet in real life, Harry or Barry?
Harry! Barry would swipe my wallet faster than you can say wingding leviosa. 

Iím a Nigerian official trying to unfreeze some assets. May I have your bank account info?
No.