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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/1616
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/1616
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I have not read it but [Soon I Will Be Invincible](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0375424865) is the closest I can think of to what you're proposing, other than the excellent short story collection [If I Were an Evil Overlord,](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0756403847) inspired by the [Evil Overlord List](http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html).

My question is, why should your main guy be _only_ petty, shallow, and selfish? Do you want him to win at the end, or be defeated? I think LOTR from Sauron's perspective (or Melkor's, who was Sauron's mentor and much more powerful and evil) would be really fascinating in a skin-crawling kind of way, but Sauron is not a one-dimensional character. (Particularly if you read all the Tolkien backstory prior to LOTR.)

Your bad guy doesn't have to think of himself as a good guy in order for his motives to be understandable to the reader. Someone with an obsession, a burning need for revenge, a mental defect, or who's just a plain ol' psychopath can be complex while still being bad. Your main character shouldn't be paper-thin and obviously hissable. The reader should actually be torn a little because s/he finds s/he can sympathize with some of the things your evil main character did.

George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, the one which starts with _A Game of Thrones_ (coming to HBO soon YEAH!!! okay sorry), has an entire family of "bad guys" who do evil, selfish, cruel, and petty things, but there is a lot about them which is also likeable and sympathetic, and when one character ends up trapped in jail as a result of her own scheming, I was both horrified and elated. That's what you want to aim for, not Snidely Whiplash.

Original score: 16