Planet’s Most Published Author?

Philip M. Parker—the self-proclaimed “most published author in the history of the planet”—has officially “written” 200,000 books, and makes money selling most of them. Parker, who compiles and organizes information on a wide variety of subjects (often only found worthy of purchase by reference libraries), has developed algorithms for his fleet of 60 to 70 computers. With the assistance of a half-dozen other programmers, Parker creates books such as, “The 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India”—guides that run roughly 150 pages long, are only printed at customer request, and are typically geared toward the highly-specialized consumer or the Internet un-savvy.

A professor of management science, Parker profits by publishing thousands of “worst sellers” with a print-on-demand business model. Recently, he has even turned his “craft” to the romance genre. Programming new algorithms to write steamy supermarket pulp, Parker passes it off as though it’s perfectly elementary: After all, “there are only so many body parts,” he says.

Via New York Times