Help yourself help others

I have always been a strong advocate of self-help books. Self help books are very useful and they result in general well-being. Well-being of the author, of course. Self help books sell large number of copies every year and are a great boost for the economy. The author's household economy, as any smart reader would have figured out by now. (It's ok, noone knows if you figured it out or not)
So much have I been overwhelmed by the utility and appeal of this genre of books, that I feel that its benefits should not be restricted to a small number of wily cunning idiots (authors, if there's any doubt left) who think reading books can help someone change his/her life. They should be extended to all wily cunning idiots (the general populace) who think reading books can help someone change his/her life. Having set this noble goal for myself, I have proceeded to write a self-help book. This one is different, though. It will really change your life. I have made reasonable progress on this front, and am glad to present to you:

23 EASY STEPS TO WRITING A BESTSELLING SELF-HELP BOOK

I present here a summary of the steps I have written that make the challenging task of writing a book that actually helps people ridiculously simple. (It should however be noted that I have put in many hours of research and great efforts - which included interviewing Joe who's now satisified with his fish-packing job and Mary who no longer craves to clean toilets while cooking - into writing this book and it was by no means a simple thing to do. Please buy this book. Crossword fills approximately 78% of its shelf space with this and similar books - the rest are cookery books)

Step 1: Choose a random number as number of steps
Absolutely essential. Imagine the title of ths book to be '15 easy steps..' . It is obvious from the beginning that the author just made that up and somehow filled the pages to create a round number of steps. Not cool. Choose 17, 23, 14 etc. THAT sounds thought out and intellectual.

Step 2: Choose your suckers
It starts getting tough from here on. There are millions of suckers out there. You just need to identify different sucker groups and pick one which you think you can easily foo- err.. easily help. Unsuccessful professionals, B-school aspirants, just-dumped-ex-boyfriends, the spiritual types, poets etc. The group should be appropriately miserable, and you should have some useful advice to offer to them. No, the last thing is not necessary.

Step 3: Pad it up with Aesop's fables
There's a myth amongst authors that anecdotes and vivid narrations have high impact on readers. Most readers believe this myth, so it's essential to make up examples of people named Joe and Mary who followed your techniques to become succesful. I understand this is difficult to do, hence I suggest you take a few of Aesop's fables, replace stork with Joe and wolf with Mary and lo! - you have your anecdotes. eg: Joe was an unhappy fish-catcher in the river. Then he met Mary, they had a bet and so on.. in the end, either Joe or Mary becomes happy. Perfect end to your anecdote.

Step 23: Get a Phd
A 'Dr.' before your name will increase sales by 33.4%. Medical doctors do not need to get a Phd.
An easy way to get a Phd. is to become a poltician and get honorary doctorates from universities in Tamil Nadu. However, to do that you will have to read my new book 'How to become a politician in 34 days'.

Smart readers may have noticed that I have omitted steps 3 to 22. This I have done for a variety of reasons, ranging from 'I want you to buy the book' 'I'm afraid you won't buy it if you read that shit' and 'Haven't really made them up yet'. But it's a good read. And it'll change your life. Available at your nearest crossword. Happy reading.