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For more than a decade, Romane Armand kept master lists of rhyming words in Word files and messy printouts. He updated his lists through years of freestyle cyphers, starting at his tough urban Boston high school and continuing with his "brothers in rhyme" while studying at Brigham Young University.

Somewhere along the way, it occurred to Armand that other songwriters and rappers might benefit from his lists, and he wrote a proposal for a book of rhymes. After pitching 30 publishers, he received 30 rejections, "and it kinda affected my confidence a little bit."

He sought advice from BYU communications professor Quint Randle, who studies new media. In 2002, Randle, a songwriter and musician, published "Making Money Making Music: The Musician's Guide to Cover Gigs."

Randle supported Armand's book idea and suggested self-publication. Controlling the publication of a book requires up-front investment, but in return it offers the author control over marketing. Content aside, positioning can be the make-or-break challenge in a cluttered market.

Armand jumped on that idea and started marketing the project with a crazy stunt. In August 2014, he set a Guinness World Record for the longest freestyle rap, continuing to rhyme 24 hours and 49 seconds, breaking the previous record by more than six hours.

He followed that up in February with a Kickstarter campaign, raising more than $5,000 from 80 backers for his "Book of Rhymes."

In March, some 15 years after the rapper first got the idea, Armand, 35, published "Book of Rhymes." On recent visits to Utah, he launched his book with a reading at the Orem Barnes & Noble, the first bookstore in the country to stock the book, as well as in a Tribune interview. In our photo studio, Armand rapped a short, sly, Utah-themed promotion for his book.

"It's the author of the 'Book of Rhymes,' who rapped from noon to noon, now I'm at the Tribune," Armand says, with an easy, practiced style. "Could recite a popular poem or go off top of the dome, bounce pass Stockton-to-Malone. One message before I exit: Go get it."

"His vocabulary is extensive and his delivery is on-point," says one of those former BYU brothers in rhyme, Schyler Chennault, a marketer for The Tribune's advertising arm, Utah Digital Services. "And to use an industry term, he's one of the 'illest' freestylers that I've heard." Ill, that is, as in good.

Randle adds: "He's the real package. He's the 1-in-a-100 student. He's good at talking to people, a good kid, and you just can't help but cheer him on."

What sets the book apart is the inclusiveness of the lists, Randle says. Those extensive lists grew up with Armand, who first attended freestyle cyphers in high school. His Haitian father had attended college and was an accountant, but as an immigrant wasn't as familiar with American educational systems. Armand says it was his passion for songwriting that ignited his interest in school, and eventually propelled him to attend Brigham Young University, following a high-school friend who enrolled at the Provo school.

The product of years of freestyle rapping informs the book's lists, which include exact and family rhymes, as well as what Armand terms "quality slant rhymes" bound by "a strong sonic connection." Not included are offensive or vulgar words, specifically any word not permitted on daytime network TV, Armand writes in the introduction.

His lists are based around rhyme sounds, such as "ay," where the listed rhymes range from "crème brûlée" to "wedding day." Or "ess," with rhymes such as "watercress" and "Wild Wild West."

The book's 50,000 rhyming entries include brand names and celebrity names. "I don't feel like it's a hip-hop product, but I think that's where the niche comes from," says Randle, who adds that he draws upon the book to improve his rhymes when he's editing his lyrics. "Even in the day of the Internet, a book still serves a purpose," Randle says with a laugh.

About Armand's record-setting rap: He says it took him three months of training to prepare. That training included rapping for 60-90 minutes on the treadmill at the gym to strengthen his breathing and attempting to retain as many of his 50,000 rhyming entries in his head as possible. He learned to use an oral analgesic spray to numb his throat.

The rules required that he could only break for 3 seconds at a time, so he grabbed bites of pizza and swigs of water every hour or so, continuing to rap while chewing and swallowing. A rotating shift of witnesses logged his efforts, which took place in a barbershop in Arkansas, where he moved to take a corporate job at WalMart after graduating from BYU in 2007.

Armand, who is currently filming a documentary about the brain drain in his native Haiti, faces another tough challenge in marketing his book. Two free websites — Rhymer and RhymeZone — have a corner on the rhyming dictionary market.

That's where Armand hopes the personality of his lists as well as his own passion — conveyed through the book's subtitle, terming his book as "a laxative for creative constipation" — will capture attention.

Front and center as part of the "Book of Rhymes' " black-and-orange cover, there's a white silhouette of toilet. Some of his mentors, including Randle, weren't so fond of the potty talk, but Armand overruled them. "I just got such a kick out of the subtitle, I had to do it, even if it means sacrificing half of my sales," he says. "It just brought me so much joy."

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'Book of Rhymes'

Romane Armand's book is pitched as "a laxative for creative constipation," and it's available at Weller Book Works and Barnes & Noble in Orem, as well as on Amazon.