Celebs Writing Books

Yeah, I realize that. I know how it is in reality-- doesn't mean I have to like it.

Christine N. said:

Yeah, I realize that. I know how it is in reality-- doesn't mean I have to like it.

Click to expand...

You don't have to like it, but for your mental health it might be good to accept it as the way of the world, the way it's always been and probably always will be. And it's not just celeb writing. What about advertisements in all types of media, jobs they get because of their fame--not their competence, and the list is endless. Frankly, I could care less. These things don't bother or impact me, and even if they did there's nothing much I could do about it.

I can't do anything about it. But I can be irritated about the fact that the behavior dilutes both the pool of writing on the market AND drops the expectations of the average reader.

Remember, most people ages and ages ago, had Dickens as average reading material. I know Jane Austen was not considered 'high' reading material when it was published, but it has to be better than Snooki's novel.

Sigh.

Christine N. said:

I can't do anything about it. But I can be irritated about the fact that the behavior dilutes both the pool of writing on the market AND drops the expectations of the average reader.

Click to expand...

It's your life, and if being irritated is your choice than so be it. But me, I don't that celeb books dilute both the pool of writing on the market AND drops the expectations of the average reader. They are what they are and readers like them for what they are. Look at the enormous popularity of tv reality show (e.g., Housewifes of....). Do think that the majority of viewers who watch these show think they are "great tv", in the true sense of the words? I don't. I think that readers and TV viewers accept these books and progrms for what they are, and know the differnce. I don't think they dilute, I just think they are a piece of the American pie.

scope said:

Can we work out something whereby we get all the good things that come with celeb and none of the bad things? Errr...guess not. Darn.

Click to expand...

Yeah, exactly.

AmsterdamAssassin said:

Ah well, we all have those dreams of a just world, a meritocratic world. And then we wake up and realize that we're stuck with this one.

Click to expand...

*sigh* I'm raising my hand in the air for this one too.

Christine N. said:

Remember, most people ages and ages ago, had Dickens as average reading material. I know Jane Austen was not considered 'high' reading material when it was published, but it has to be better than Snooki's novel.

Click to expand...

However, these people would be totally overwhelmed just standing on a street corner in our society. The writing of Dickens and Austen matched their time, and their Snooki contemporaries were just not good enough to be remembered a hundred years later.

No use crying over spilled milk.
Someone complained about my diction, how I use too many high-brow words in a suspense novel. I don't. But I will use the verb 'sashay' to describe a waiter in a gay club walking around, because 'sashay' is precise, and 'swaying his hips' would be approximate. If readers give me grief over using precise diction instead of dumbing down my work for mass appeal, well, perhaps my novels are not for them...

Salman Rushdie is writing a TV SF series!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...s-the-new-literature-says-Salman-Rushdie.html

Meh. Didn't Salman Rushdie's publishers withdraw his work from a shortlist for a SF award early in his career because they didn't want him tainted by genre? Plus ca change ...

MM

Re: the celebrity thing

I'm not a fan of celeb books, mostly because they are all fake. But somewhere a ghostwriter is making a living, so yay! Also, those celebrity books sell, which brings more money into the industry, more money to publisher, and, therefore ultimately, more money to writers like me.

I mean, there are books for everyone. I don't like celeb books generally, but there are some good ones, mostly written by celebs who are famous for their art to begin with, like actors. Maybe it's a genetic creative gene.

But the infamous celebs, the ones who barely read books before they decide they want to write one? Meh. Don't like 'em, my opinion. Don't buy 'em, don't read 'em. Won't put the money in their pocket and encourage their behavior.

But I don't watch their shows either. Not that I don't watch ANY reality TV: I like Pawn Stars and Cake Boss. Cable shows. It's the sensationalized, scripted 'reality' shows I can't stand. Which all seem to be on network TV....

I love celebrity memoirs (ghostwritten or not)...Jordan? YES! I've read both Dog the Bounty Hunter books, too. I tried to read the thinly veiled 'fiction' Lauren Conrad books and couldn't.

Reading is escapism, and I think some of them have some honesty and some really great things, but then some of them are just ridiculous mind candy.

Wasn't there a rapper who decided he was going to dazzle the publishing world with his fiction, but claimed he never read fiction because he never found good books?

Meh. Personally I don't care, not in the slightest. They're writing them because people are buying them, and it's no more complicated than that.

Teachers, doctors, journalists, shop assistants, housewives, pensioners, teenagers, all write books. Why not a singer or an actor, or a glamour model? Sure, their standard fanbase will probably buy the book whether good or not, but that doesn't influence the possible sales of mine.

Now, if we wanna talk about how sometimes the wrong people become famous in general (coming up with a definition of 'wrong' of course), then that's a different conversation altogether, and yes, I have stronger opinions on that one.

If a ghostwriter is making a living, I'm all for it. Good for them.

Now I've read snippets of Tori Spelling's memoir. My sister said Tori wrote it and then a ghost cleaned it up, put correct punct and so on. WHat I read...awful. There is a long chapter dedicated to the death of her dog. If her life is so uneventful that she has to write 3k words about her dog kicking it, it's a sad, sad book.

I also read her children's book entitled, PRESENTING TALLUAH. Again, not good. She did this one all her own and an editor fixed problems. I guess it to be maybe 700 words. For someone who likes picture books, I didn't think it was done well. It was obviously a "Poor Tori had it hard growing up" book. She basically tried to do a part memoir for kids. My niece hated it...

Christine N. said:

the behavior dilutes both the pool of writing on the market AND drops the expectations of the average reader

Click to expand...

Then you need to get a time machine and go back to the 1600s to fix it (at least in the English-language and French-language publishing markets).

Memoirs of celebrities have been A Thing since then, though in those days the celebrities were aristocrats and murderers, mostly.

And yeah, Dickens was a best-seller, but for every copy of a Dickens novel that sold, a hundred or more copies of crudely written, exploitative "penny dreadfuls" sold. Disposable potboiler literature has been part of the English-language and French-language publishing markets pretty much since their inception.

The mythology that people used to read more serious literature than they do now doesn't stand up to scrutiny, except in regard to religious literature. People did use to read Pilgrim's Progress and The Imitation of Christ and other serious devotional works.

So . . . nobody likes Snooki?

There was once a quote that made a lot of sense to me, very simple too. But I can't remember it.

Something about accepting the things you cannot change, but concentrating on those that you can. Give me a minute, I'll look it up.

Okay, "be granted the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and to have the wisdom to know the difference."

gan_naire said:

"be granted the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and to have the wisdom to know the difference."

Click to expand...

This is not an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting... we can bitch and gripe about stuff we can't change... not that I care about a celebrity publishing a book...

scarletpeaches said:

Jordan, Jordan, fucking Jordan.

Click to expand...

Try saying that infront of a mirror at midnight and see what happens.

*shudders*

No chance. I'm not that foolhardy.

Jamesaritchie said:

It's hard to sell a memoir if you aren't a celebrity because most of them lose money.

Click to expand...

So, um, how to explain the huge miz-lit market that exploded into being a few years ago? The non-celeb memoir I co-ghostwrote has earned royalties of six figures in US dollars (yes, before the decimal point).

Granted that the market has peaked and seems to be shrinking now, but there's still a section at every bookshop here in the UK devoted to non-celeb memoirs.

Terie said:

So, um, how to explain the huge miz-lit market that exploded into being a few years ago? The non-celeb memoir I co-ghostwrote has earned royalties of six figures in US dollars (yes, before the decimal point).

Granted that the market has peaked and seems to be shrinking now, but there's still a section at every bookshop here in the UK devoted to non-celeb memoirs.

Click to expand...

There are loads of memoirs that make money - most of the 'tagic lives' section at the likes of Waterstones are memoirs, usually about child abuse or domestic abuse etc, and they sell really well. There are always loads of them in the supermarket as well. I was in ASDA yesterday and about half of the book section was taken up by them.

So yes, it seems that memoirs do sell. Admittedly, many of them seem to share a common theme.

White covers, child half-turned from the camera, all with titles like Mummy Stop Hitting Me or Don't Make Me Touch It, Daddy.

shaldna said:

There are loads of memoirs that make money - most of the 'tagic lives' section at the likes of Waterstones are memoirs, usually about child abuse or domestic abuse etc, and they sell really well. There are always loads of them in the supermarket as well. I was in ASDA yesterday and about half of the book section was taken up by them.

So yes, it seems that memoirs do sell. Admittedly, many of them seem to share a common theme.

Click to expand...

Hence the sub-genre name 'miz-lit': 'misery literature'.

And heck, if there's an actual sub-genre with an actual name, it's a bit hard to make the argument that they don't make any money.

scarletpeaches said:

White covers, child half-turned from the camera, all with titles like Mummy Stop Hitting Me or Don't Make Me Touch It, Daddy.

Click to expand...

Kinda like this (the one I co-ghostwrote):

Tsk. You had to spoil it by giving it a sensible title, didn't you?