The Holocaust Blind Date Hoax

As I'm sure most of you are aware, right before the Christmas break, a story broke that Angel at the Fence, a memoir of two Holocaust survivors who met at the Buchenwald fence and then had a blind date 12 years later was a hoax. The book was to be published by Berkeley, and was already an Oprah pick.

It was another example of poor vetting on the publishing side of the spectrum (why can't publishers use the same yardstick as journalist's? Make the author give written or corroborating verbal proof?), as well as another example of an author making up a (believe it or not) romantic Holocaust past (Misha, the fake memoir about the woman who was brought up by wolves after escaping the Nazis). As well as yet one more Oprah-backed memoir that was too good a story to really be true (James Frey). I know it makes the reading pubic question the veracity of memoir, and that's not a good thing.

But, I looked in my email this morning, and had a very long blog entry from a man who claims he helped expose the Holocaust blind date hoax, and I thought it was an interesting backstory. I did not vet it, so I post the link here with that warning.

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BRINGING DOWN THE HOAX

http://globalwishingwell.blogspot.com/

The New Year

Who among us is not happy to see 2008 go?

But, there are some in publishing who predict even worse numbers for 2009.

I don't know.

What I do know is that what is selling is celebrity and branded books (I have two of those right now), as well as pop culture titles (I have one on the best seller list and another in development, although it's with a TV show, so it's also branded and official). There's still a strong market for YA, romance and erotica, but there are fewer slots open than last year.

And the ebook and audio markets continue to grow, while print publishing shrinks, but both were so small to begin with that it's inevitable that there would be growth there.