I, Libertine

Summary

Hoax! Podcast – “I, Libertine” (Jan 5, 2026)

Hosts: Dana Schwartz & Lizzie Logan
Theme: Audacious literary hoaxes, book list manipulation, and why people fall for (and participate in) big cons

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Episode Overview

This episode of Hoax! takes listeners into the world of literary tricks, focusing first on bestseller list scams—most notably the notorious “Handbook for Mortals” incident—and culminating with the classic 1950s hoax “I, Libertine,” where a cult-favorite radio host convinced the reading public, publishers, and even censors of the existence of a non-existent book. The hosts explore how lists become gatekeepers of legitimacy, how hoaxes can be both victimless crimes and acts of joyful subversion, and the blurry lines between earnest hustle and outright scam.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bestseller Lists: Prestige, Ego, and Scams

Dana’s Author Experience

• Dana Schwartz shares her legitimate journey to becoming a New York Times bestselling author with "Anatomy: A Love Story" and its sequel, "Immortality."
• [02:41] Dana:
  “It does not mean I'm rich and can retire. It means, I mean, honestly, every week for the New York Times list, it's like you could have a lucky week or an unlucky week...So I was probably lucky that, like, no big YA book was coming out...”

The “Dagger” (†) on NYT List

• If you see a dagger on the list, it means bulk buys—often politicians or celebrities purchasing their own books in bulk.
• [05:44] Dana:
  “People do hoax the New York Times bestseller list. They scam it all the time. And if you ever are reading the New York Times list and see a little dagger next to it, it means bulk buys...”

Ticketed Book Signing Loophole

• Book signings that bundle ticket price with a book purchase force sales numbers up.
• [06:09] Lizzie:
  “If you go to a book signing, a lot of times the ticket...includes the cost of the book, so it forces you to buy it.”

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2. The “Handbook for Mortals” Scandal (2017)

How the Hoax Worked

• Author Lani Sarem used bulk orders at reporting bookstores to manipulate her YA novel to #1 on the NYT list, displacing Angie Thomas’s beloved “The Hate U Give.”
• YA Twitter erupted as the book had almost no organic reviews, was sold out on Amazon, and had no visible fandom.
• [11:09] Lizzie:
  “They're like, there's something a little fishy going on here because this is an author no one has heard of...a handful of Amazon reviews, all of which are five stars, all of which look identical.”

Bookstores and Complicity

• Bookstores had little incentive not to comply, as bulk orders were good business.
• [20:13] Lizzie:
  “If someone calls and says, hey, are you a New York Times reporting store? There is no reason...to be like, nope. Because if you say yes, they're probably going to order 90 books from you.”

Sarem's Outlandish Defense

• Claimed she sold 18,000 preorders at conventions, which experts and hosts quickly dismiss as implausible.
• [23:30] Dana:
  “Why didn't you just say pre order through this bookstore? Because she was standing right there. And also because this didn't fucking happen.”

Ethics & Punk Rock Vibes

• Some consider it minorly punk rock, while others (like Dana) find it “a little icky.”
• [25:45] Lizzie:
  “I just want to say, I think what she did is like a teeny tiny bit punk rock.”
• [27:40] Dana:
  “I'm coming out. I want to be on the record as I think this is like, a little icky.”

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3. Lists as Gatekeepers and Why People Fall for Them

• Social status, legitimacy, money—all confer upon being “on the list.”
• Lists are often subjective, curated, or outright manipulated.
• [40:13] Lizzie:
  “This whole town runs on lists. You think just because it's on a list, it's gotta be real, and if it's not on the list, it's not real.”

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4. The Main Event: The “I, Libertine” Hoax

Setting the Stage: Who Was Jean Shepherd?

• Radio host in 1950s NYC, beloved by “night people”—creative, non-conformists up after midnight.
• Shepherd loved pranks, challenged societal norms, coined “creeping meatballism” for bland conformity.
• [38:14] Lizzie:
  “Day people have something that he called creeping meatballism, which is basically what he called conformity...”

The Prank

• After being told a real book wasn’t on “the list,” Shepherd starts a campaign on his late-night show:
  • Listeners (“night people”) are told to go into bookstores and ask for a completely fictional book: I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing, a former British commander and expert on 18th-century erotica.
  • Publisher? “Excelsior, you fathead!” (Shepherd’s catchphrase.)
  • Flight attendants and night-shifters help the prank go international.
• [41:00] Lizzie:
  “He gets them all to call in and write in with names of, like, fake authors and fake books…The best one…was I, Libertine.”

The Hoax Takes Off

• Booksellers start parroting the fictional book’s “cool factor.”
• Even academic assignments and censorship bodies (the Boston Archdiocese) fall for it—Boston bans the book.
• [43:13] Lizzie:
  “College students are turning in book reports on I, Libertine, and they're, like, getting good grades on that.”
• Eventually, the media exposes the hoax. Instead of backlash, Shepherd is celebrated for pranking the arbiters of taste.

The Aftermath: Making the Fake Real

• Publisher Ian Ballantine hears about the prank and, with Shepherd, his wife, and sci-fi writer Theodore Sturgeon, actually writes and releases a “real” I, Libertine—fulfilling the demand they created.
• Shepherd hosts meetups where night people get their copies signed.
• [44:49] Lizzie:
  “And they're like, well, if a bunch of people want a book called I, Libertine, let's give them a book called I, Libertine.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [01:00] Dana (jokingly adopting “ghost” persona):
  “I'm the ghost of Dana Schwartz.”
• [12:27] Dana (on NYT list thresholds):
  “You will hit the New York Times bestseller list on like an off week with like 4,000, 5,000.”
• [41:58] Dana (praising the prank):
  “That is actually very plausible.” (Reacting to booksellers faking knowledge)
• [44:23] Dana (on the prank's value):
  “They're in on the joke. And it's also like, you know, it's showing that, like, you date people aren't smarter than anybody else.”
• [46:14] Dana (reading from “I, Libertine”):
  (Performs a dramatic reading with a thick cockney accent)
• [48:44] Lizzie (the twist):
  “And in 1983, it was turned into a movie called A Christmas Story.”
• [49:15] Dana:
  “I like a little feeling like you're part of a club. Yeah. Even though I go to bed at 9:00 every night. So I'm not a night person … but I'm like, yeah, stick it to the man.”

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Important Timestamps

• [02:00-04:53] — Dana’s path to bestsellerdom
• [05:40-08:10] — Introduction to book list scams
• [10:07-16:05] — The “Handbook for Mortals” manipulation unfolds
• [20:12-23:30] — Bookstores and ethical dilemmas
• [28:20-35:41] — Introducing Jean Shepherd and “night people” culture
• [40:12-44:33] — The “I, Libertine” hoax, prank mechanics, and viral spread
• [44:49-47:56] — The hoax becomes real: book written and published
• [48:44-50:12] — The twist: Jean Shepherd’s connection to “A Christmas Story”

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Overall Tone and Takeaways

The chatty, slightly subversive humor of Dana and Lizzie underscores the episode. They delight in odd, victimless crimes (“I think what she did is like a teeny tiny bit punk rock” – Lizzie, [25:45]) but also stress the fragility and arbitrariness of prestige mechanisms like bestseller lists. There’s admiration for hoaxes that include and delight their audiences—I, Libertine—and skepticism for those that exploit or exclude.

Final Message:
Lists are just lists—often arbitrary, sometimes manipulated, and rarely the sole arbiters of quality or worth. Sometimes the greatest trick is simply getting everyone to look in the same direction.

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Where to Find More

Find the “Hoax!” podcast on Instagram (@hoaxthepodcast), or email Dana at hoaxthepodcastmail.com
Dana: @DanaSchwartzz (Instagram/TikTok)
Lizzie: @lizzie.logan

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Closing Advice:
[50:44] Dana:
“And as always, please Hoax responsibly. Bye.”

Transcript

[Lizzie Logan]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[Evan Ratliff]

Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with a basic business plan, Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with the story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast shell game on iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dana Schwartz]

You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart podcasts.

[Lizzie Logan]

Folks.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's a Hoax Alpha.

[Lizzie Logan]

No one ever seems to believe me.

[Dana Schwartz]

When I swear I never was deceiving I'm left wondering welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we wish were.

[Lizzie Logan]

True and truths that sound like lies.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm the ghost of Dana Schwartz.

[Lizzie Logan]

And I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan. Welcome to the show, Dana. You're a New York Times bestselling author twice over.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes, thank you.

[Lizzie Logan]

These are facts.

[Dana Schwartz]

These are facts.

[Lizzie Logan]

These are just the truth. Can you tell me how that happened?

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, I mean it happened that I just wrote a book that called Anatomy a love story about a girl who wants to be a surgeon in 19th century Edinburgh. Because I love like gross stories about surgery and things like that and Frankenstein inspired stories. And then I wrote this book and then kind of like just the miracle of like the editor liked it, the publisher liked it. I got a great cover design which is.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's a beautiful cover and it's also a rockin book.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's thank you very much. And then one day you're agent just gives you like the best. Oh, and it was a. Reese Witherspoon was nice enough to choose it for her book club. The first one, the first one which like is really nice. And then you just get a really nice call from an agent one day that says it is number one on the list.

[Lizzie Logan]

Amazing. On the ya.

[Dana Schwartz]

It was on the YA hardcover. YA hardcover New York Times list.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay, amazing. And then the sequel to that, immortality, also hit number one.

[Dana Schwartz]

Hit number one. Another really nice phone call from an agent.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay, great. And what is that like, I don't want to ask you like, you know, gross numbers, money, questions, but what is that like, you know, for the listener at home who has never heard of book? Like, what does that mean? Does that just mean like a lot of people bought it like does that mean you're rich and can retire? Like what does that mean? What does that mean?

[Dana Schwartz]

It does not mean I'm rich and can retire. It means, I mean, honestly, every week for the New York Times list, it's like you could have a lucky week or an unlucky week, like you could be going up against like, I don't know what, like the hot like Dragon Ball, like the new Hunger, the new Hunger Games book. And then it's just like you're just not gonna. Those are on a different level. So I was probably lucky that like no big YA book was coming out the week I was released. I don't ask about numbers cause it stresses me out. But what it means is a lot of country, other countries wanna publish it. Cause they look at the New York Times list, so it's been translated a bunch and it means I get royalties. So yeah, it's really nice. It's a big ego boost. I get to say New York Times bestseller on everything else I write. It's great. Yeah, no complaints. 10 out of 10.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Good experience. But it's also like, even if it, you can still sell well and not.

[Dana Schwartz]

Make the list a hundred percent. Especially for really competitive categories like nonfiction where there's always like some like, I don't know, diet or like podcast bro book like that you'd just be going up against. Or some like, I don't know, Republican memoir. And also like hardcover nonfiction is really hard, so. Or hardcover fiction as well. So you can also sell really well and be, you know, a really well received book and not make the New York Times top 10 just because it was a kind of a fluke of a week.

[Lizzie Logan]

And also because like if you sold like half that many books but like every week, you know what I mean.

[Dana Schwartz]

You can be a sleeper hit.

[Lizzie Logan]

One really good week versus like several pretty good weeks. You could actually sell more books.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Like, I truly don't know what the subject of today's episode is, so thank you just for letting me have this ego boost moment. But like the first week that a book is released, it also counts pre orders. Yes. So they can all go into it. I mean, so if you're inclined to want to pre order my new book coming out in May, the arcane arts by S.D. coverley, which is a fun little pseudonym. Please, please pre order it. But you know not to brag. Anatomy stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks. Number.

[Lizzie Logan]

It stayed at number one the whole time.

[Dana Schwartz]

Stayed number one for like, for a few weeks at least a Few weeks, stayed on the list for a little while. Oh, my God.

[Lizzie Logan]

And if anyone out there can make this happen, I still want a movie with Sadie Sink as Hazel.

[Dana Schwartz]

I would love that someone has bought the rights, but if you want to pay them to make the movie, that would be fantastic. Sadie Sink would be so good as Hazel.

[Lizzie Logan]

I just think. I just want that. I just want it.

[Dana Schwartz]

Should we just send a copy to Sadie Sink? If anyone knows Sadie Sink, let me know.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Okay, so spoiler for I don't know, 10 minutes from now. Today's hoax is about, like, a book hoax that has to do with not strictly the bestseller list, but, like, lists in general.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, I can't wait.

[Lizzie Logan]

And it's a little bit of a. Of a shorty.

[Dana Schwartz]

People do hoax the New York Times bestseller list. They scam it all the time. And if you ever are reading the New York Times list and see a little dagger next to it, it means bulk buys, which is usually like politicians, because it means they basically just bought a million copies of their own books to sell or give away at events. So bulk. That's like, okay, you're on the list, but with a dagger.

[Lizzie Logan]

With a dagger, which is their little version of an asterisk. And also there are other versions of this where if you go to a book signing, a lot of times the ticket to the book signing will include the cost of the book, so it forces you to buy it. So even if you've already purchased the book, you can't just bring your own copy. You have to. Whatever. So all of which is to say we're gonna get to the hoax in a second. But I wanted to start with talking about your book, which I think very much legitimately earned its place on the New York Times bestseller.

[Dana Schwartz]

Thank you very much.

[Lizzie Logan]

Then I wanna talk about one of these dagger scandals that I think is really fun. And then we're gonna talk about the hoax. Just because I like talking about all this stuff.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, it's a fun ego boost to get to, say, New York Times bestselling author. So I get why people wanna scam the system.

[Lizzie Logan]

And I also think it's, like, a little bit of a victimless crime. Because it's like, no, I'm the victim.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm the victim because it dilutes the prestige.

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, let's get into it.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

Dana, do you remember the 2017 Handbook for Mortals scandal?

[Dana Schwartz]

I don't know what this is at all.

[Lizzie Logan]

With a author named Lanny Serum.

[Dana Schwartz]

The name Handbook for Mortals sounds familiar, but I wouldn't be able to say anything else.

[Lizzie Logan]

This has been lodged so deep in my brain of my, like, chronically online. Like I think 2017 was the peak of my Twitter addiction. And all of this went down on Twitter. And I just am so excited to have a reason to talk about this because all this knowledge has just been bouncing around in my brain for the better part of a decade now. And I'm just so glad that we can just talk about it.

[Dana Schwartz]

I can't wait. I can't believe I missed literary Twitter drama.

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, yes, so it was YA Twitter drama, but it all took place over the course of like 23 hours.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay, so it was just. Tell me.

[Lizzie Logan]

It was just a nutty thing that happened. So in 2017 there was a website called Geek Nation.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

It was founded by the actress Claire Kramer, who you probably would know. She played Glory on season five of Buffy.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. And her husband. And it was like not even that popular of a website. They announced that they're starting like a YA publishing arm.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

And they're going to start with this planned five book fantasy series by this author, Lanny Serum. The first is called Handbook for Mortals.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's a good name. Yeah, I like it.

[Lizzie Logan]

And it's about this like young woman who can do magic. She comes from a magical family and she like moves to Vegas and is part of a Vegas act.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, sounds like a good YA book.

[Lizzie Logan]

Sure. And also they're gonna make movies of it and she's gonna star. She, Lanny, is gonna star in the movie.

[Dana Schwartz]

What, the author? Uh huh.

[Lizzie Logan]

And it's gonna be co produced and co star Thomas Ian Nicholas, who you would recognize his face. He was like in the American Pie movies and he was in Rookie of the Year. And a kid in King Arthur's Court, which is that like Disney movie where he invents roller skates.

[Dana Schwartz]

I see who this kid is. Yeah, I know who he is. I can also picture now the COVID of the book. Are there cards on it?

[Lizzie Logan]

Um, it's a woman who is blindfolded and she's sitting in front of a big target.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And there's like knives.

[Dana Schwartz]

Like a throwing axe.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

It will later come to be revealed that the COVID was like plagiarized from another piece of art.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sure.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

So they announced this movie with like a sort of child has been movie star.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. They're like, oh, this. Guess what, we're like launching a whole thing. They run this announcement in the Hollywood Reporter, which doesn't usually comment on publishing news, but somehow they get it in the Hollywood Reporter.

[Dana Schwartz]

You can do that.

[Lizzie Logan]

Nobody really takes notice until all of a sudden. So this is like summer 2017. Do you remember that book, the Hate U Give?

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Angie Thomas.

[Lizzie Logan]

Angie Thomas has been at the top of the YA bestseller list for I think like six months.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, it was a rock.

[Lizzie Logan]

It was a big hit. And everyone's wondering, like, what is gonna knock the Hate U Give off of the top.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Spot. And all of a sudden, Handbook for Mortals is the number one on the New York Times bestseller list. And YA Twitter, which is a group of people you don't wanna piss off.

[Dana Schwartz]

No, please don't be mad at me. YA Twitter.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh my God, Dana Innocent. Never, never come for her. They're like, there's something a little fishy going on here because this is an author no one has heard of. This is a book no one has heard of. This has a handful of Amazon reviews, all of which are five stars, all of which look identical.

[Dana Schwartz]

And I will also say, okay, so you know how you can tell if someone has paid for followers on social media if their engagement is super low? You can tell if a book is popular or not by, like, if it has Goodreads reviews, if it has Amazon reviews. Also, books come out. It takes so long for books to come out that there is like hype machines that happen. Like I, this book that's coming out in May, the Arcane Arts, is not coming out for months. And I was at New York Comic Con in October to promote that book. Like, that's just a thing coming out of nowhere happens. But it's rare.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's very rare. And everyone's like, what is going on? Has a handful of Amazon reviews, all five stars, all exactly the same. A handful of Goodreads review, all five stars, all exactly the same. It's listed as out of stock on Amazon, and according to Nielsen Bookscan, it has sold 18,000 copies, which is nuts.

[Dana Schwartz]

For a random YA book like you. You will hit the New York Times bestseller list on like an off week with like 4,000, 5,000.

[Lizzie Logan]

So everyone's like, does anyone else think that's weird? So they start, they meaning like the denizens of YA Book Twitter start getting DMs from booksellers, being like, hey, all this past week we've been getting phone calls from people being like, do you report your sales to the New York Times? Because the way that the Times collects information, it's not like that scientific. It's basically like a good faith effort. They have a secret list of bookstores that Just self report what they're selling that week.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And they'd been getting phone calls being like, hey, are you a Times reporting bookstore? And if they answered yes, then the person would be like, okay, we're gonna do an author event at your bookstore. I'm gonna. I'd like to place a bulk order for 90 copies.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, my God.

[Lizzie Logan]

For mortals.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So they start getting DMs from different booksellers and they like, blow it up on Twitter. And then things start getting really bad. Just people coming out of the woodwork to like, cancel. Lanny just being like. So her day job had been that she was the tour manager for the band Blues Traveler.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

And also the actor who played Jasper in Twilight. His band.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, sure.

[Lizzie Logan]

So Blues Traveler comes out and is like, yeah, we had to fire her because she was always doing shit like this. And the actor who played Jasper is like, yeah, she sucks.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, my God.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. The artist who did the original artwork that the COVID was plagiarized from is like, this is really uncool.

[Dana Schwartz]

So she was calling these bookstores and like, placing these orders that, like, the bookstores. But, like, presumably people wouldn't buy them from the bookstores. Right.

[Lizzie Logan]

They were offering to, like, pay the bookstores.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, they were like, we'll buy it from you.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, like, we're buying it.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Everything is going wrong. And the fact that it was knocking the Hate U Give off of the top spot gave this whole thing sort of like, people are coming for her.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, the Hate U Give in like.

[Lizzie Logan]

A social justice way.

[Dana Schwartz]

Exactly. The Hate U Give is a young adult novel about a young black woman who sees one of her friends killed by the police.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes.

[Dana Schwartz]

So it is a very socially conscious book. And to like, sort of take it down with like a scam would get eyeballs.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. And I, to be very clear, I don't think Lanny had anything against or maybe was even aware of the Hate U Give. Yeah. It was entirely about self promotion. But the fact that the Hate U Give was like a beloved book that Angie Thomas was also like a first time author.

[Dana Schwartz]

It.

[Lizzie Logan]

It made people be like, lanny is white entitlement personified, and it's greed and blah, blah, blah, which, like, with a little bit of distance, I find the whole thing kind of funny and not necessarily so sinister. But at the time, people were like, you know, this is like real moral bankruptcy. And really they were very, very cynical about it.

[Dana Schwartz]

People overreacted on Twitter, Dana.

[Lizzie Logan]

You're never gonna believe people found a way to make this about morality. And not just selling books.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Not just like a kind of shitty scam, but it's like I don't think she did it out of racism.

[Lizzie Logan]

Who knows?

[Dana Schwartz]

Who knows?

[Lizzie Logan]

But I wouldn't say that that was the primary. I wouldn't say that that was like the primary driving force.

[Evan Ratliff]

Hi, Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

[Dana Schwartz]

There's this betting pool for the first.

[Lizzie Logan]

Year that there's a one person billion.

[Evan Ratliff]

Dollar company which would have been like unimaginable without AI.

[Dana Schwartz]

And now will happen.

[Evan Ratliff]

I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses.

[Evan Ratliff]

Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lizzie Logan]

At least part of this scheme, whether she knew it or not, was run through a company called resultsource, which is still around. It's a company that basically, if you pay them enough money, they will put you on the bestseller list. They will get you that dagger. That's like the company that does this. They'll coordinate all of the bulk buys. They kind of got in trouble a few years ago. Not because, like, listen, if you're a CEO and you publish a book about being a CEO and you want to get it on the bestseller list, and so you do bulk buys and then you give all of your employees a copy of your book, like, whatever, it's one week.

[Dana Schwartz]

What happens?

[Lizzie Logan]

Whatever. But they kind of got like in a little bit of trouble because also, like mega church pastors would do this and they would use like money collected from their congregants to do it. And it's like, that's actually sort of tax fraud.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So result source has sort of like gone quiet. They used to be like, hey, we'll get you on the bestseller list. And then after that scandal happened, they Were like, oh, wait, we're just, like, a promoter. We're just here. We're just a conversation. So they kind of tried to hide their involvement in this whole Lanny serum thing, but they were definitely part of it. You know, it's not illegal. The level to which it is unethical sort of depends on, like, how sanctified you believe the New York Times bestseller list to be.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, I also think it. Like, in the book world, there are just systems. Like, it is hard to sell books. Yes. Book sellers and bookstores. Like, it is hard to be a bookstore. It is hard to be an author. And I do think there are systems in place. Like, the New York Times list does help other bookstores because, okay, let's say a different bookstore saw on the New York Times bestseller list, like, oh, gosh, there's this book that's number one that we don't have in stock. They will order that book, assuming that people will want to buy it. And, like, bookstores do not have huge margins. So I. I don't think it's like, I don't know, don't put her in prison. But I think it's, like, a thing that I can't get behind because I'm like, look, the thing about books is we just love reading books, and it is so hard to make it as an author or a bookseller. And we shouldn't exploit those things selfishly, even if it's, like, it's not a crime.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. I mean, it's definitely tacky. One interesting thing. So I read all these articles about this. One interesting thing that came out is that, like, yes, bookstores run on very thin margins. And what one of the booksellers said is, like, there is. If you're a New York Times reporting store, there is no reason to take the high road.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

If someone calls and says, hey, are you a New York Times reporting store? There is no reason to be like, nope. Because if you say yes, they're probably going to order 90 books from you. And that's a really good sales day.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And you want that sale.

[Dana Schwartz]

I don't blame the bookstore at all.

[Lizzie Logan]

They're like, no, this system benefits us. They're like, why would we not just be like, yeah, we're a New York Times reporting bookstore. Do you want a place of bulk sale like that? Do you want to do your author event here so that you can place a bulk sale through us and not through one of our competitors?

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

They're like, that's the difference between a bad sales day and a Good sales day. So they're like, we're not fighting it. We're not fighting this corruption. We want to sell books.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

If the.

[Dana Schwartz]

If you're.

[Lizzie Logan]

We don't care if it's for your ego.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

We want to sell books. That's interesting. Lani has her own explanation.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

Of how all of these sales came to be.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Which I think is far more creative than anything she could possibly write.

[Dana Schwartz]

Magic, almost. What is her explanation?

[Lizzie Logan]

So, first of all, she says that she wrote this as a screenplay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sure.

[Lizzie Logan]

Then they said, you know, we will fund this screenplay if you can turn it into a book. And that book hits the bestseller list. And I'm like, honestly, girl, Hollywood is so hard. Like, ip, like, sells.

[Dana Schwartz]

IP sells.

[Lizzie Logan]

That makes sense. That makes perfect sense to me. Like, that someone would tell her that and that she would be like, okay, how much do I have to spend to get this on the bestseller list? I just want to make a movie.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. That makes much cheaper to get something on the bestseller list than it is to make a movie.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

But also hitting the bestseller list, to be totally honest, does not actually make a huge difference. With ip, A lot of. We don't have to get into this, but a lot of producers will be like, yeah, I'll buy your unpublished short story, because then they don't have to pay for, like, rights and stuff. Whatever. But keep going.

[Lizzie Logan]

I'm just saying I can understand that someone would give her this questionable advice and that she would believe it.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes.

[Lizzie Logan]

Like, it does make sense to me. So her explanation is that she and Thomas Ian Nicholas.

[Dana Schwartz]

The actor.

[Lizzie Logan]

The actor went to a ton of conventions, like comic cons and band conventions and, like, nostalgia conventions. And that she would sit at his booth with like. Like a. I don't even know what material she had, but basically, she took pre orders, and she took 18,000 pre orders.

[Dana Schwartz]

Wow.

[Lizzie Logan]

For this book. And then when it became. When it was like, pub week, instead of fulfilling those pre orders directly from her publisher or. Which wouldn't have counted in the New York Times system because they don't count, like, direct to consumer sales at conventions.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, sure.

[Lizzie Logan]

She decided to fulfill them through bookstores because she wanted to hit the New York Times bestseller list.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, smart.

[Lizzie Logan]

And she's like, I don't understand why that's unethical. These were individual sales that I made to individuals who wanted to buy my book. I just ran them through the system so that they would count.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, that is true. But why didn't you just say pre order through this bookstore?

[Lizzie Logan]

Because she was standing right there. And also because this didn't fucking happen.

[Dana Schwartz]

This didn't happen. But again, you can pre order through your favorite local bookstore. And in fact, if you're listening, I would love for you to pre order the Arcane Arts from your favorite local bookstore.

[Lizzie Logan]

I agree. Also. So she's basically claiming that she sold like 2,000 books per convention.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, that's neat.

[Lizzie Logan]

George R.R. martin cannot sell more than a few hundred books per convention. Yeah, that's, that's her explanation is she's like, well, George R.R. martin's an author. I was sitting next to a celebrity. The star of American Pie.

[Dana Schwartz]

The star of American Pie.

[Lizzie Logan]

And the reason that all of these people attacked me is because I'm not part of their little YA author club.

[Dana Schwartz]

No, that's not. I'm definitely not in any club. And so far no one knock. What? No one's attacked me. But no, she. No, no, that's not, that's not accurate.

[Lizzie Logan]

And she's like, I'm just a hustler, baby.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, that is accurate. No, no lies detected.

[Lizzie Logan]

I think it's like so stupid. Conclusion of this mini scam. Before we get into the hoax, which I. No, this is not the hoax.

[Dana Schwartz]

Right.

[Lizzie Logan]

Before we get into the hoax, I do think. I don't want to say authors because I don't want to get attacked. I think some people can be a bit self righteous about things.

[Dana Schwartz]

I also think some book communities are very self righteous.

[Lizzie Logan]

I also do think finding liars and canceling them is fun and good and continue to do it. Yes, that is fun and funny.

[Dana Schwartz]

Scandals are fun. Cancel culture. It happened because piling on is fun.

[Lizzie Logan]

Like, yes, if you find out that someone faked their way onto a bestseller list, like, dig it up and call them out. Like, that's fine.

[Dana Schwartz]

Did she write the rest of the five. Was it five Books trilogy?

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, she. The website is still active and you can like pre order, you can like order a signed copy of the book. But it also is like we're releasing the movie in 2019, which like, you know, it came and went. But I also think what she. I just want to say, like, I think what she did is like a teeny tiny bit punk rock.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, I will say it's funny.

[Lizzie Logan]

I will also say, like, if you don't think that the big publishing houses are essentially deciding which books become bestsellers.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Like they decide who gets the marketing. They decide who gets like the prime spots at, you know, Comic Con. They decide who gets the celebrity endorsements.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, and it says the New York Times did remove the book from its rankings, so.

[Lizzie Logan]

And which she brags about online. She's like, I'm the only person who's been removed from the bestseller list. Like, she's interesting. You can look her up. All of which is to say, like, if you think that just because they don't have a dagger next to them that they're on the bestseller list because of pure talent and purely the strength of the book, that is not necessarily true.

[Dana Schwartz]

Can I also say I googled this and I did get an excerpt from the first chapter. Can I read you a sentence?

[Lizzie Logan]

Absolutely. Apparently the prose is not good.

[Dana Schwartz]

Quote. People tell me I'm pretty all the time. Beautiful, even. I'm not sure I see what they see. I think I'm more of a cute, average looking girl. I'm slender, but I do not believe most would say skinny. Not hot girl, skinny, at least. I have long legs that are toned, but I think my thighs are too large and I do not have a thigh gap. My arms are kind of flabby. And while I do have an hourglass figure, I have. I've always felt that my butt is a little too big and my face is a little bit too round.

[Lizzie Logan]

Listen, I've tried to read some of the stuff that booktok promotes, and it is not that much better. I'm not gonna name names. Also say, you know, like, we all just need to take lists less seriously.

[Dana Schwartz]

Taylor Swift, you're more pro Loni than I am.

[Lizzie Logan]

I am not pro Lani.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm coming out. I want to be on the record as I think this is like, a little icky.

[Lizzie Logan]

All of it. I think it's a little icky, but I just think, like, people are always jumping down Taylor Swift's throat for, like, selling different vinyls because she's trying to, like, manipulate the.

[Dana Schwartz]

But no, no, here's the difference. You know what the deal is with Taylor Swift vinyls? People are buying them. Human beings who want those vinyls are buying them. Taylor Swift gets to do whatever she wants.

[Lizzie Logan]

Taylor Swift is supposedly, her dad bought all the copies of her first album, but.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, okay, fine, we'll talk about that.

[Lizzie Logan]

Which you know what I would do for my daughter if I had the money and she wanted to be a country star.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Should we talk about the actual hoax?

[Dana Schwartz]

Let's get into the hoax.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay, so the reason that I wanted to talk about Lanny Serum is because this hoax has to do. Not strictly with the New York Times bestseller list, but with just books and lists in General. And so I thought it would be fun to talk about how goofy these lists are and have always been great. Do you know who Jean shepherd is?

[Dana Schwartz]

No. Should I?

[Lizzie Logan]

No. But I thought it would be funny to show that there's someone who. You don't know who they are.

[Dana Schwartz]

I don't.

[Lizzie Logan]

I didn't until I started researching this. Gene shepherd was a radio host who started his career in the Army Signal Corps during World War II. He moved through.

[Dana Schwartz]

No, I am. I am behind my World War II radio hosts. Okay. He does more.

[Lizzie Logan]

He was like a cult comedian, basically. He landed in New York at the station W O R in the mid-50s, and his shtick was that he talked. He was basically like one of the fathers of talk radio. He was always getting fired for not playing enough music and for just talking. Yeah, he would take calls, but usually he would take them, like, during ad breaks to get people's feedback and talk through, like, different concepts. And he would just expound on the topics of the day, whatever was on his mind.

[Dana Schwartz]

The original podcaster, truly, he would have.

[Lizzie Logan]

Thrived in the age of the podcast. Like, he. I have this written down here. He was way ahead of his time. He should have been a podcaster. He was a storyteller. He was very funny. He was like anti establishment, but he was in a gentle, folksy, Midwestern way. He was not, like, crude or sexual, but he was very smart. And he would just sort of. This was like the era of the monologue. So, like, if you picture, you know, Lenny Bruce is downtown just kind of like spouting off, and you have Mort Saul, the comedian, he would just get up on stage and open the newspaper and just talk about whatever was in the newspaper. So he's the guy on the radio doing that. He wouldn't write things down beforehand. He would just talk about whatever was on his mind. He's doing jazz talk, literally freeform jazz. This is like the era of Nichols and May. So it's like, it's cool to be smart, and it's also a very buttoned up time. People are so square. And he's hip, he's downtown. He's not exactly edgy, but he's talking to you adult to adult.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And he's funny.

[Dana Schwartz]

I see why he's a hit.

[Lizzie Logan]

He's not quite a hit.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay, well, I see why he has an audience.

[Lizzie Logan]

He's a cult hit.

[Dana Schwartz]

A cult hit.

[Lizzie Logan]

He is sort of like early days Marc Maron.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Or Dave Von Ronk.

[Dana Schwartz]

And if you know, you know, if.

[Lizzie Logan]

You know, you know, he's like the comics. Comic. He's like the guy's guy. And a lot of the stories that he tells are not true because he would run out of true stories from his childhood, so he would just make them up.

[Dana Schwartz]

Stand up comedy.

[Lizzie Logan]

Dina, do you ever just lie for fun?

[Dana Schwartz]

I do not. But my husband is a standup comedian, and I know for a fact that sometimes. Sometimes when comedians say, I was on the way here today, and you'll never guess what happened, I hate to tell you, but that it did not happen on the way there today, maybe a something tangential related to that thing happened at some point in their life.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

But that is how stand up comedy goes. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

I used to enter. When I was in middle school, I would enter speech and debate competitions under the name Jasmine Mahogany.

[Dana Schwartz]

Your porn star name.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. I thought it was really funny. I was like, oh, my parents were hippies.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, you lived in San Francisco. It's not implausible.

[Lizzie Logan]

And then I remember one night in high school, it was like, me and my friends went out to pizza, and we met these guys, and we were like, let's just lie to them. Like, let's just lie to them about who we are.

[Dana Schwartz]

One time, a friend and I were lying at a show and pretended to have bad British accents. Yeah. And then, like, our cover was like, oh, we grew up. Like, we know our accents are weird. Like, we traveled a lot when we were kids, so our accents are like, you know, from hodgepodge, blah, blah, blah. And it was just like, I don't know.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. I told this guy that because we had just, like, found out we had just gotten into colleges, and we were like, let's just lie about where we're going to college. And then when they got to me, I was like, oh, I've been homeschooled because I'm, like, training for the Olympics.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's a cool lie. What sport?

[Lizzie Logan]

I think gymnastics.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

Which if you've ever.

[Dana Schwartz]

You're too tall.

[Lizzie Logan]

Which if you've ever seen me, I'm also just not athletic.

[Dana Schwartz]

But he didn't know no men. Famously stupid.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. And also, like, that was a joke.

[Dana Schwartz]

Carmen, get mad.

[Lizzie Logan]

To his credit, it would be very wrong for a man to be like, you clearly don't work out that much.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, no, that would be rude. I also will say I get nervous lying because the thought of anyone being mad at me at any time stresses me out. And so if I lie, then the thought is that at some point, someone might say to you, hey, that was a lie. And then I would, I think, break out in hives and dissolve onto the floor. So the thought of that, the lying is fun, I think, in theory, but the thought of anyone confronting me really terrifies me.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, yeah. Later on, shepherd would say, like, oh, I was just telling stories that I thought of and I just said them in the first person. But I didn't think for anyone to think that they had happened to me. Which is like.

[Dana Schwartz]

But if that, like, format hasn't been formalized yet, people listen to it and assume it is true. Because he's not like, he's not doing it like this American lifestyle.

[Lizzie Logan]

No one got mad though, is what I'm trying to get at. Oh, great. It's just like, you have no idea. Like, people would go back later and be like, we have no idea what his childhood was actually like, because half this shit couldn't have happened.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, so this isn't the hoax?

[Lizzie Logan]

No.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, wow. I investigated.

[Lizzie Logan]

I'm just trying to establish that he's kind of a liar.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay, great.

[Evan Ratliff]

Hi, Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

[Dana Schwartz]

There's this betting pool for the first.

[Lizzie Logan]

Year that there's a one person billion.

[Evan Ratliff]

Dollar company which would have been like unimaginable without AI.

[Dana Schwartz]

And now will happen.

[Evan Ratliff]

I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, hey Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting, interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses.

[Evan Ratliff]

Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lizzie Logan]

So he starts being on in the afternoon, but eventually they move him to the middle of the night because he keeps telling these goofy stories and he won't play any music.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sure.

[Lizzie Logan]

He's on from 1am to 5.30am sure.

[Dana Schwartz]

The real Nighthawk hours, the real night hours.

[Lizzie Logan]

And he's by himself. And they don't want to pay to keep the Studio in Manhattan open. So he's up in Jersey, broadcasting directly from the transmitter.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

So. Which is, like, really hot. It's just like a big machine. So he's sitting there just in his, like, underwear, just talking into a microphone for four and a half hours.

[Dana Schwartz]

Amazing.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. And it gets very intimate. And like, when you were talking about, like, cult following, like, truly, just like the cult of Jean Chakra, I mean. Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

If you know. You know, it's a guy at one in the morning in his underwear just talking to you.

[Lizzie Logan]

Just free flow, letting it into the mic. And he calls his listeners the night people.

[Dana Schwartz]

That makes sense. And also, I think part of the cult thing, if I just hearing it, like, radio at this time is ephemeral. Like, maybe they might record it, you know, sometimes for some things, but, like, not always. No.

[Lizzie Logan]

And we have a number of his shows recorded from fans.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Because they really liked him and they wanted to record it. So if you're a night person, it's not just that you work at night. It's actually that you are, like, activated by the night. It's that, you know, day people are the ones who. The daytime is their real life. Like, going into the office and obeying by society's rules. That's. They. That they buy into that. They're like. They focus on that and they believe in it. Not the night people. The night people are up because they're doing something creative. They might have an office job, but they know that that's just what they got to get through.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's the dream. And the night is the real life.

[Lizzie Logan]

The night's the real life. It's very severance. It's very the Matrix, but it's not in, like, a creepy way. Yeah. Like, he's a smart, grounded guy. He's just like, guys, we're the night people.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. And I bet that they would have, like you said, ahead of their time. I bet they would have had a great subreddit.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, they would be absolutely the subreddit. And, you know, this is also, like, not a. You know, it's about, like, the beatniks versus the squares.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So we're the night people. Day people have something that he called creeping meatballism, which is basically what he called conformity, but which is such a good term that I really want it to come back.

[Dana Schwartz]

I feel like I know a few people with creeping meatballism.

[Lizzie Logan]

Creeping meatballism is so good, we can't really get into it. But he, like, wrote articles about it, and it's just so good. He's got a really offbeat sense of humor, and his catchphrase is, excelsior, you fathead.

[Dana Schwartz]

He sounds funny.

[Lizzie Logan]

He's really funny. He likes to do little pranks. He likes to tell his listeners to stick their radios in the window and turn it up as loud as they possibly can, and then he'll put music on. His show is on the verge of getting canceled because it can't attract sponsors. So he starts just, like, talking about this one brand of soap that he really likes, and they immediately cut him off, and they're like, hey, that soap doesn't sponsor your show. Like, you can't just talk about it. And he's like, I'm trying to prove that I can sell stuff. Yeah, I didn't think anyone would be mad. Apparently, he actually did help sell a lot of Miller High Life. So if you're a fan of Miller High Life, thank Jean Shepherd. He kept that brand around. All right, now we're getting to the hoax that was all just stuff about Jean Shepherd. In April 1956, shepherd goes into a bookstore. Related. Related. To get a book of transcripts of one of his favorite old radio shows, Vic and Sade. And. And the bookseller is like, not only do we not have that book, I'm looking at the publisher's list, and that book doesn't exist. So he's like, gaslighting him. And Shepard's like, no, like, I know this book exists. Like, what do you mean you can't just, like, help me find this book? And the bookseller's like, nope, it's not on the list, so it doesn't exist. And he's like, man, these fucking day people with their lists.

[Dana Schwartz]

With their lists.

[Lizzie Logan]

These fucking day people with their lists. Like, these goddamn squares in these bookstores. And he's like, this whole town runs on lists. You think just because it's on a list, it's gotta be real, and if it's not on the list, it's not real.

[Dana Schwartz]

And, I mean, as someone who, like, always does check, like, infatuation lists for restaurants, I'm like, I do get it. Where. I do have this thing where I'm like, if it's not on a list, that means it's not good, right?

[Lizzie Logan]

And, like, we just put all this. But. And he's like, you know, lists are made by people, and people make mistakes.

[Dana Schwartz]

True.

[Lizzie Logan]

And you can't just look at me and believe me that this book exists. I'm a human, right? Like, isn't it possible that I'm right? And the List is wrong because the list was made by a person. Person can be wrong.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So he's like, you know what? We got a little prank.

[Dana Schwartz]

Let's do a prank.

[Lizzie Logan]

Let's do a prank. Let's do a prank. So he tells all of his night people, listeners. He's like, we're gonna make up a fake book.

[Dana Schwartz]

And no one's paying attention because it's.

[Lizzie Logan]

Two in the morning, it's the middle of the night. And he gets them all to call in and write in with names of, like, fake authors and fake books. And he compiles what he thinks is the best. The best one, and they decide that their fake book is called I, Libertine. And it's written by a man named Frederick R. Ewing.

[Dana Schwartz]

That sounds plausible.

[Lizzie Logan]

A former British commander and civil servant in Rhodesia, he is known for his BBC broadcasts on 18th century erotica. And he is like, okay, everybody go into your local bookstore and ask for I, Libertine.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And it's published by Excelsior. And so if anybody asks, who's the publisher, you say, Excelsior, you fathead.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's funny.

[Lizzie Logan]

And people do. Hundreds of people do.

[Dana Schwartz]

Great.

[Lizzie Logan]

And also, because he is on in the middle of the night, a lot of, like, flight attendants listen to him because they have crazy hours. So this. This prank goes international.

[Dana Schwartz]

Amazing.

[Lizzie Logan]

And all of these booksellers are like, what is going on? I've never heard of this book. They're calling each other. They're like, what's going on? What's going on? And people start writing in and calling in with, like, the results of the prank, apparently. I mean, all of this can't be confirmed. And I'm sure people are making stuff up to make it seem like the prank was bigger than it was. But these are the reports of how big the prank got. Apparently some bookseller who wanted to seem very in the know was like, I'm so glad Americans are catching on to Frederick Ewing's work.

[Dana Schwartz]

Aha. That is actually very plausible.

[Lizzie Logan]

Very plausible, right? And some editor is overheard. Some. Some gossip columnist overhears an editor saying, like, oh, yes, I was having lunch with Frederick Ewing last week. It's like those videos that people used to make where it was like, people pretending that they'd heard of really obscure bands that didn't exist at Coachella.

[Dana Schwartz]

And again, this is like an era, like pre Internet, where you can't quite fact check these things, where so much of the literary world at this time is, like, word of mouth and what's cool. So it's like, yeah, these people want to be cool.

[Lizzie Logan]

College students are turning in book reports on I Libertine, and they're, like, getting good grades on that.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, the professor can't Google it. What's he gonna do?

[Lizzie Logan]

There's a listener in Boston who works for the archdiocese and puts it on a list of banned books, and then the entire city of Boston bans it. It's not really, like, a secret because, again, he's, like, doing this on the radio. It's the middle of the night, but it's still the radio. By August 1, the prank is over. He talks to the Wall Street Journal for an interview. He explains the whole thing, and everyone is calling the powers that be at wor. They're like, this is a great story. Tell us more. It's a big hit. Everyone thinks he's real funny for doing this.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, you know what I think, actually a great hoax, because it's inclusive. The night people who got to listen got to feel part of a club. Everyone got to be in on the jo.

[Lizzie Logan]

They're in on the joke. And it's also like, you know, it's showing that, like, you date people aren't smarter than anybody else. If we tell you something's real, you'll believe us. It's.

[Dana Schwartz]

This is. This is a delightful hoax, and I love it.

[Lizzie Logan]

I'm so glad. Ian Valentine, the publisher Ballantine Books from Ballantine Books, gets wind of it, and he's like, well, if a bunch of people want a book called I Libertine, let's give him a book called I Libertine.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, that's pretty smart.

[Lizzie Logan]

And it's unclear who got who in touch with who, but Ballantyne, his wife, a sci fi writer named Theodore Sturgeon, and Shepard all get together and they write a book.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm glad Shepard was involved in this.

[Lizzie Logan]

He was involved, kind of barely.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, I hope he made a little.

[Lizzie Logan]

Money, but he got some money. There's at least one report that said the money went to charity, but he had his. It was not without his consent. Yeah, he was involved.

[Dana Schwartz]

He was involved.

[Lizzie Logan]

And they write a book about an 18th century duchess called I Libertine, and they publish it.

[Dana Schwartz]

Funny. Good.

[Lizzie Logan]

They have, like, a little meetup of the night people where he signs copies.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's so fun.

[Lizzie Logan]

Tina, would you like to read a passage from I Libertine?

[Dana Schwartz]

I really would. Look on your computer.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. So I got through the first two chapters. You know, it's a silly book. I selected a passage in which this carriage driver is talking to his, like, lord.

[Dana Schwartz]

Is this a sexy book?

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, but not really. It's like, fake sexy. A carriage driver is talking to his lord. And I thought it would be funny to hear because it's written with, like, a really harsh accent.

[Dana Schwartz]

Great.

[Lizzie Logan]

And I thought it would be funny.

[Dana Schwartz]

To make you do it, given that I had faked a British accent. Yes. Okay. I have to read this whole thing.

[Lizzie Logan]

I think you should.

[Dana Schwartz]

And a pity Pigott aimed his whip handle at the young man's broadcloth. England and Prussia rule the ruddy world this anno ruddy Domino 1769. 69. He orated. And those that rule the world take the orders of their ostlers. Aye, their valets and their maids of ruddy honor. They do what they're told they do because their servants always know what's happening. And they can't know till they're told. Like a ruddy great general wantin to know what's appening over the ill. E could ask is Batman? And likely E does. Otherwise it's someone else's Batman who finds out. Or t to go all the way down the line to Weary Ass Grenadier. Oo finally sticks is ed over and eats grape shot for is breakfast. And oo's more of a servant than anybody's ruddy foot soldier, I'd like to know. While you're about learning your airs and graces, m', lad, never forget to leave an ear in the scullery and be grateful to whoever keeps the wax out of it for. Yeah, what were we talking about? You were making some libelous remarks about Miss Chudleigh. Nah, lad. Twas slander, the old man corrected.

[Lizzie Logan]

I thought that was funny.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's funny. And it also embodies the idea of the night people and the day people. Yeah, all the day people with their fancy airs. But the people who really know the stuff are the, you know, the footmen and Batman and.

[Lizzie Logan]

And they know the difference between libel and slander.

[Dana Schwartz]

They do know the difference between libel and slander.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Just to wrap up, what happened to Gene Shepherd. He did not stay broadcasting in the night forever. He was eventually taken back to the daytime. He wrote for the Village Voice, and he wrote a lot of his childhood stories up for Playboy.

[Dana Schwartz]

His, like, fun, fake childhood stories.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, his, you know, exaggerated. He's. I mean, I hope this is, like, not bursting anyone's bubble. David Sedaris is an exaggerator. I think he's sort of in that tradition. He published a group of them in 1966 as a novel called In God we trust all others pay cash. And in 1983, it was turned into a movie called A Christmas Story.

[Dana Schwartz]

Wow. What? Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And he is the narrator of that movie. So you have heard Gene Shepherd's voice. Lizzy Logan, What a twist at the.

[Dana Schwartz]

End of this episode.

[Lizzie Logan]

Indeed.

[Dana Schwartz]

In God We Trust All Others Pay cash is very funny. It's good.

[Lizzie Logan]

He died in 1999.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, my God.

[Lizzie Logan]

And yeah, he's the great American comic voice you have heard but never heard of. That's a great hoax. And this was the funny little I libertine hoax that he perpetrated.

[Dana Schwartz]

I love it. I like a little feeling like you're part of a club. Yeah. Even though I go to bed at 9:00 every night. So I'm not a night person. And I buy my clothes from Nordstrom. I'm like, there's nothing night person about me. But I'm like, yeah, stick it to the man.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, we're not very hip, but you're hip.

[Dana Schwartz]

You're from San Francisco.

[Lizzie Logan]

I am so hip. But, you know, I think we're smart and we're not. We're not total meatballs.

[Dana Schwartz]

We're not total meatballs. Well, Lizzy Logan, where can the night people find you?

[Lizzie Logan]

The night people can find me posting all about this podcast hooksthepodcast on Instagram. Dana, where can the people find you?

[Dana Schwartz]

Find me at Dana Schwartz with three z's at the end on Instagram and TikTok. And you can email [e-mail] I do read those emails.

[Lizzie Logan]

Indeed.

[Dana Schwartz]

Please, if you're enjoying the show, leave a rating, leave a review. We want to get up on those podcast lists.

[Lizzie Logan]

I know we're gluttons for the charts. We love charts. I made fun of them for so much of this episode, but now I'm like, But I want to be a best selling podcast.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, make us a best selling podcast. Listen to the show, send it to.

[Lizzie Logan]

Your friends, bulk buy the podcast.

[Dana Schwartz]

Just send it to everyone. Make multiple email addresses to leave multiple.

[Lizzie Logan]

Reviews, juice the numbers, scam us to the top.

[Dana Schwartz]

And as always, please Hoax responsibly. Bye.

[Lizzie Logan]

Hoax is a production of I Heart Podcast. Our hosts are Dana Schwartz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt Frederick and Trevor Young with supervising producer Rima El Kayali and producers Noams Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our theme music was composed by Lane Montgomery. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.

[Evan Ratliff]

Hi, Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan. Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by people. Check out the second season of my podcast Shell Game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lizzie Logan]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.