Friday, February 9, 2007

Pop Culture Book Publishing

Lets's see how long it takes for mass market paperbacks on Anna Nicole Smith and Lisa Novak (probably titled THE WRONG STUFF) to be signed up. Watch Publisher's Marketplace.

Let's also see how long it takes for the first appearance of the stalker in a novel to wear Depends while driving to meet the victim. It's a great detail. Too bad it's not fiction.

12 comments:

Linda C. McCabe said...

Lori,

The first time I heard about this whacked out woman wearing Depends while on her mission to kill her romantic rival I had several things going through my mind.

The first was ewwww.

The second was wondering how this woman's defense attorney is going to try to mount a defense for her. The prosecution has their case already made for them by having her drive 900 miles while wearing a diaper because she didn't want to miss reaching her victim in time because she had to stop and go to the bathroom.

My third thought was that truth is stranger than fiction and this is so weird I wouldn't have believed it if it was written in a novel.

I just wouldn't. So yeah, a novelist can use it now, but... I'd still have a hard time maintaining the suspension of disbelief if they included such a detail.

Linda

Tyhitia Green said...

ROFLMAO! I didn't hear that little detail on the news about the Depends. How sick is that?
Anna Nicole's case was just sad. Hopefully the media will finally allow her to rest!
Lori, you're right. A book will pop up about both of them, unfortunately.

Anonymous said...

Ummm. She's an astronaut. The current state-of-the-art waste management system for spacesuits is a diaper. Sure, they talk about the zero-G toilet, but they can't use that when they're suited up. So it wasn't quite such an odd idea for her as it's being made to sound by the news media.

Stacia said...

THE WRONG STUFF. I think you called it.

Anna Nicole, that's just sad. That poor baby girl.

Cellophane Queen said...

One more sensational, ripped from the headlines book to shove aside any well-written novel by a serious writer.

Not me. I write kid's books.

Anonymous said...

I've actually heard about the diaper thing before -- it's something private detectives do when they're on stakeout. It's not quite as weird as they're making out to be in the news -- it really is the single detail that everyone's obsessing over. And the point anonymous made about astronauts makes it even less weird.

Kerry Allen said...

She didn't want to stop to go to the bathroom. But in 900 miles, didn't she have to stop for GAS?

Faith Bicknell said...

Oh, Marva, you hit the nail on the head, hon!!!

Gossip/celebrity material is one of the things about publishing that ticks me off. It's sad.

I think I was born into this business about 30 years too late. Nowadays, it's all about the money, how to turn a fast buck. On average, I spend about an hour in such bookstores as Borders. I *might* come out with one new release. Anymore, I go to the library for books. If I borrow 5 books, one might be a new release; older material is often written better, imho, and has better plots and character development. I never borrow celebrity material from the library and I certainly never pay good money for it.

Ravenous Romance said...

Celebrity books has a place. When I was a teen, I really wanted to know how my idols got where they were. I read John Lennon's awful fiction, I read every one of Anais Nin's diaries.

I don't have time to read celebrity books anymore for pleasure, but I'm happy to sell them if I feel there's a modicum of information and/or entertainment in them.

And some of those celebrities will go on to write real books - look at Kinky Friedman and Jimmy Buffett.

Celebrity bios have been with us since the silents. Although the quickies have really disppeared in the age of the Internet. Now we get Britiney's poety.

Faith Bicknell said...

Britney's poetry...HAHAHAHA!!! Lord help us... :-D

Anonymous said...

Jenna Bush's book.
Need I say more?

Adrienne said...

Why does the Anna Nicole thing make me so sad? It feels like from the very beginning her whole life was set up to end this way. Really really sad.