Madonna's gift of prophecy

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Stephanie

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Thanks for bringing that article up - I liked the number comparison at the end.

How about another prophecy? Reading Reptile will suddenly be inundated with manuscripts.
 

Inspired

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I hate to throw the literature out with the gliterati, but it does make me a bit jealous when I see the big figures for no effort. I hope people can see through all the glitter to find the real gold - there certainly must be at least one author among the famous people. I think Cheney's books look promising, and I know my daughter loves the Jamie Lee Curtis stuff. I just wish they didn't think every book with a famous name would automatically sell.
 

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Of course, if Lynne Cheney's book somehow fails to be a bestseller, Dick can always stomp individual Borderses to dust in his eighty-foot-tall MechaNeoCon battle suit.
 
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PattiTheWicked

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I think the only kids books by celebrities that my kids have *really* enjoyed were "I'm a Manatee" by John Lithgow (which they liked because we had just seen Snooty the Manatee in Florida) and "Cat, You Better Come Home" by Garrison Keillor, which was one of the funniest and best-written kids books I've ever checked out of our library.

really, though, my little ones don't care whose name is on the cover. They want stuff with bright colorful illustrations, a captivating story, and a heavy degree of silliness.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Celebrities

This is tilting at windmills. Publishing is a business, and as such it's about what sells. Books by clebrities sell. And in all honesty, I've found most of them are pretty good, I haven't read any I'd call bad, and I think it's disengenuous to say the celebrities aren't writers. I thought all you had to do to be considered a writer was to write.

That's what all the newbies continually proclaim whenever the subject of what it takes to be called a writer comes up.

And these books do not eat up the oxygen, they provide it. Yes, they receive large advances and large promotional budgets. But they sell well enough to return it all with a profit thrown in. Such books generally pay the way for new writers.

I think railing against such books is usually just a matter of envy or jealously.
 

cwgranny

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Except that book editors, librarians, and booksellers say that it is pretty clear that celebrity children's books AREN'T paying the way for new writers and ARE eating up the oxygen in children's book publishing. It may work differently with adult books. And many of them ARE actually just bad. I've heard an editor explain one reason why celebrity children's books are bad -- you can't edit them. It's not an ego thing, it's an availablity thing. Celebrities are very difficult to contact and being the celeb's editor is not a magic carpet. Thus, the give and take of the usual editorial process is often not possible. Plus (unlike adult books by celebs) children's books are considered easy -- thus, the celebrity is not open to having a ghost writer just re-write the thing the way often happens with adult books.

Actually, most authors don't complain about celebrity books beyond the complaints about how the "only the sure-and-certain big sellers shall be published" law of adult books is gushing down to children's books making acquistions very different today from how it was a few years back. Also, backlists are going out of print far faster in children's books than has EVER happened. There was a time when winning an award or being linkable to school curriculum promised you eternal life -- that doesn't happen any more. Sales rule...and sales say: buy recognizable names -- either as author or as character (hence the swelling of Spongebob Squarepants books and the feeble like).

However, you are right that it's a matter of tilting at windmills. Publishing has changed and it's not likely to change back. But -- heck -- people talk about politics, weather, and human nature even when there is no possible way to change them, why not talk about the state of publishing? We don't have to like it just because we can't change it.

Oh -- and since I've heard editors rail....librarians rail...teachers rail...parents rail...and booksellers rail about the quality of books in this "money rules" children's publishing environment, I have trouble pin pointing why they would be jealous. I guess it's just us authors who aren't allowed to talk about our own profession without being stamped with an envy stamp by folks who don't know what they are talking about.
 

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Not all publishers are the same; the only people who can afford to pay for a Madonna book, or a book by Vin Diesel, or whoever, are the huge multinationals. The other ones are not hamstrung by colossal advances.
 

Nivvie

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I've just read about the whole ghost writing fuss.
It appears she didn't write those books anyway, it's all just a platform for her religion.


Maybe it's just the sour grapes talking, but I'm glad.
It's still wrong that a celebrity's name sells a book, but if it's really, really good I can cope. In this case, the books weren't great, and she didn't even write them, and now she's been exposed. Hurrah!
 

Nivvie

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I personally don't like it when a celebrity's name sell anything inferior, but a lot of these books are taking up shelf space and they're just awful. Like I said, if it's a good book, fair enough.

I read Britney Spear's book as I just couldn't believe her and her mother could put together something publishable, and I was right. It also seemed a lot of people agreed, as there were soon remainder bins if it everywhere, and I kept seeing it donated at charity shops.

I think it's cheating the reader. Maybe the people who buy a book based soley on the popularity of the author deserve to be cheated, but many people do assume that because there is a celebrity name, there will be a certain level of quality.
 

stormie

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Jamesaritchie said:
This is tilting at windmills. Publishing is a business, and as such it's about what sells. Books by clebrities sell. And in all honesty, I've found most of them are pretty good, I haven't read any I'd call bad, and I think it's disengenuous to say the celebrities aren't writers. I thought all you had to do to be considered a writer was to write.

That's what all the newbies continually proclaim whenever the subject of what it takes to be called a writer comes up.

And these books do not eat up the oxygen, they provide it. Yes, they receive large advances and large promotional budgets. But they sell well enough to return it all with a profit thrown in. Such books generally pay the way for new writers.

I think railing against such books is usually just a matter of envy or jealously.

James, usually I agree with you, but this time I can't.
Did you ever read Madonna's (five) books? Katie Couric's? Billy Crystal's? Fergie's (Sarah Fergeson)? As another poster said, you'll find their books in the remainder bins at the local discount store. The only celebrities' children's books that are good are the ones by Jamie Lee Curtis or Fred Gwynne (sp?).

Yes, maybe there's jealousy or envy, but why not? We write and rewrite, send out tons of queries or spend money on postage to mail the mss. We're working to make sure our ms. is the best it can be.

Now I step off my soapbox. I gotta go have my coffee.
 

Torgo

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But the business of publishers and booksellers is to make money. If they believe that a book by Britney Spears will make money, they will publish it.

I don't see it as cheating the reader. I think the sort of reader who is dim enough to believe that, just because Madonna can sing a bit, she's going to write cracking children's books, is cheating themselves. Most of these books, surely, are bought by people who already have an interest in the author and want to read them to gain some further insight into their personalities.

There are relatively few fiction titles by 'celebrities' from other walks of life published every year, and they don't usually stick around for very long. Certainly if you go to your local bookstore you will not find the shelves groaning under the weight of forty copies of 'Swan' by Naomi Campbell. It is much more likely that the J.K.Rowlings and Dan Browns of the world will be taking up the shelf space. (Especially at the moment: returns are flooding in as booksellers clear their inventories for the usual four days of Pottermania.)

What annoys me is the suggestion that the practice of publishing the occasional book by some film star or comedian somehow stifles 'real talent' or otherwise prevents good books from selling. If someone turns up at Madonna's publisher with the new 'Where the Wild Things Are', they aren't going to say, sorry, we spent the money on 'The English Roses'. (Even if they do, someone else will buy it.) Nor will they schedule it to come out at the same time if they think they'll be in direct competition.
 

cwgranny

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These days, yes, much of children's publishing is chasing money like the rest of the publishing world. But that wasn't always the case and it still isn't the case for all publishers -- Charlesbridge, for example, still feels that celebrity books cheat the reader and they won't publish them. Period. Not can't -- won't. Not unless they had a submission (not an idea, a submission) from a celebrity that showed the person can actually write a good book. They believe that selling poor quality books to ignorant parents CHEATS young people and they won't do it. You see, the buyer of most children's books ISN'T the reader...it's the parent who grabs recognizable names -- celebs, adult writers slumming in the children's department, or media tie-in books. So, yes, some folks feel it doesn't cheat the reader but others feel it does. Neither view is about jealousy but about how we perceive the business.

And I have SPOKEN to editors at some of the celeb happy publishers who say...yes...celebrity books DO make it harder for them to sign the next WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. You see, there's no guaranteed money for an unknown WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE but there is guaranteed money (or so they hope) in Billy Crystal or Madonna. Unfortunately, there is OFTEN not as much money as the publisher bet on. Celebs are expensive -- very, very expensive and that expense is not always met in sales. A celebrity IS IN FACT consuming funds that could have been spent on real books -- funds at a publisher are finite. If the celeb consumes them, then two things happen (1) some new good authors don't get published that year by that publisher and (2) the publisher throws MORE money at the promotion of the celeb book because they've already put all their eggs in that basket, they can't afford for the basket to rip.

Chasing names has nearly killed publishers before -- ask D.K. Publishing what chasing the first of the new Star Wars books did for their bottom line. It costs massive amounts of money to chase names and if you bet on the wrong name, it can kill your company. But it's the way things are right now.

Ask doctors how they feel about frivolous lawsuits and you'll hear HOURS about it. But they can't do anything about it. It's the way things are right now. Still, we understand that the way things ARE can suck. The way things are in children's book publishing is not good for new writers or writers of new unusual books (since publishers tend to like "more of what's selling, only a little different). If a book about a fuzzy duckling sells great, you can lay money that you'll see at least 6 books about fuzzy ducklings in the next year.

Personally, I'm not JEALOUS of Madonna (well, maybe of her voice -- I can't carry a tune.) I am not JEALOUS of her writing skills (or the skills of the non-children's writer Kabalaist who ghosted the books). I write better, so why would I be jealous? That would be stupid and I am rarely stupid. I am frustrated with the direction the children's writing business is headed because I think books for kids SHOULDN'T be seen as a commondity like peanut butter. I think they are supposed to be FOR children...meant for children, written for children, entertaing, enlightening, exciting FOR CHILDREN. I believe they aren't supposed to be an outlet for a celebrity to make us think she/he's a good parent. I believe they aren't supposed to be bought for the name and discarded because they're unreadable. I guess I -- personally -- believe the way publishers like Charlesbridge believe. I believe children's books are important to our society because I believe children are important -- and that publishers have a calling that many are failing. Those very publishers haven't always failed, but they are today. I believe that's sad.

And I feel that way without a bit of jealousy involved...just frustration and a little sadness. After all, I'm a parent too. In all honesty, I would love to see celebs published the way Fred Gwynne was published -- because they really are good. We would still have celebrity books. We'd have some of Julie Andrews, and we'd have Jamie Lee and we'd have Henry Winkler -- but we wouldn't have Madonna, Katie, or really most of the others. We'd still have some adult writers writing for children. We'd have Coraline and Hoot but we wouldn't have James Patterson's wretched Christmas book.

Personally, I believe that even if publishers bought according to QUALITY no matter who wrote it, they would still sell books. They sold books before Rowling's charming tales made children's publishing a blockbuster world. But there would be fewer good children's writers collecting "I'm sorry, but I couldn't get it past marketing at the acquisitions meeting" notes and fewer parents lamenting that "there aren't any good kids books these days." And we wouldn't see excellent authors like Jane Yolen turning to tiny publishers when her book isn't quite commercial enough.

Of course, my dream isn't going to change the way things are -- I know that, but it doesn't mean I can't dream. That's what writers do.
 

Nivvie

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Tilda said:
My goodness. I understand ghostwriting in many other cases, such as non-fiction,...but fiction & ghostwriting? How greedy can someone be?

Exactly.
I understand when an expert needs help putting their knowledge into publishable words, or when someone writes an autobiography, but madonna's case is just ridiculous.
 

JoeEkaitis

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Nivvie said:
Exactly.
I understand when an expert needs help putting their knowledge into publishable words, or when someone writes an autobiography, but madonna's case is just ridiculous.
I can already hear her apologists and fans:

“Like, WHAT is EVERYONE getting so UPSET ABOUT? I mean, like, you know, the ‘Nancy Drew’ books weren't written by just, you know, one person. I mean, Gawd, getalifealready.”
 

cwgranny

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If I were to guess...I would bet Madonna wrote English Roses by herself. It's a very personal book and I expect she thought of it as "her" story. Then, I would guess either time pressure, boredom with the process, or the kinds of reviews the book got caused her to lose interest in the books -- but she had a rather huge contract for a lot of money so she had to turn in books. The second book (and all subsequent) were variations on traditional stories (or so I have heard) so they are very different from the first and likely to be the point where a new writer stepped in.

I do wish, however, that they had credited the illustrators on the cover (and I noticed that after the first book, the publisher began using really incredible illustrators to boost sales by making the product so much more attractive.) I would love to have Loren Long illustrate a book of mine, such incredible talent...wow.
 

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cwgranny said:
I do wish, however, that they had credited the illustrators on the cover (and I noticed that after the first book, the publisher began using really incredible illustrators to boost sales by making the product so much more attractive.) I would love to have Loren Long illustrate a book of mine, such incredible talent...wow.
Hallelujah, A-MEN, sister!

Sadly, though, even the once-venerable Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market has joined the celebrity bandwagon. Until Loren Long hooked up with Madonna, he was just another guy who drew pictures and was unworthy of their attention. The 2005 CW&IM has a profile of him that's as much a love letter to Madge. Equally frustrating, Callaway Editions doesn't have a listing in CW&IM or on WritersMarket.com, meaning they don't even want submissions from the readers.
 
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Torgo

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To CWGranny

cwgranny said:
These days, yes, much of children's publishing is chasing money like the rest of the publishing world. But that wasn't always the case and it still isn't the case for all publishers -- Charlesbridge, for example, still feels that celebrity books cheat the reader and they won't publish them. Period. Not can't -- won't. Not unless they had a submission (not an idea, a submission) from a celebrity that showed the person can actually write a good book. They believe that selling poor quality books to ignorant parents CHEATS young people and they won't do it. You see, the buyer of most children's books ISN'T the reader...it's the parent who grabs recognizable names -- celebs, adult writers slumming in the children's department, or media tie-in books. So, yes, some folks feel it doesn't cheat the reader but others feel it does. Neither view is about jealousy but about how we perceive the business.

The children's publisher I work for feels the same way as Charlesbridge. That's the sort of place where quality books are going to still find a home. Of course, if Madonna (or any celebrity) turned up with a book that compared favourably with the rest of our list, we'd try to publish it.

We are living in a GOLDEN AGE of children's literature. At no time in the history of children's publishing has there been such a wealth of choice and quality on bookshelves.

And I have SPOKEN to editors at some of the celeb happy publishers who say...yes...celebrity books DO make it harder for them to sign the next WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. You see, there's no guaranteed money for an unknown WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE but there is guaranteed money (or so they hope) in Billy Crystal or Madonna. Unfortunately, there is OFTEN not as much money as the publisher bet on.

They deserve to go out of business pretty quickly. Top-quality picture books (especially) are instantly identifiable to even the most callow editor. (The tricky ones are the ones that need lots of work to be top-rate; that's one of the things you pay the senior people for.) When you see something of the calibre of WTWTA, you find the money to buy it, or you're a mug. You buy it BEFORE you shell out for Billy Crystal. Seriously. It's a better business model by far.

Funds at a publisher are finite. If the celeb consumes them, then two things happen (1) some new good authors don't get published that year by that publisher and (2) the publisher throws MORE money at the promotion of the celeb book because they've already put all their eggs in that basket, they can't afford for the basket to rip.

What you do (and have seen done when the budget is tight or set) is to give the author a deal for the next financial year. Besides, new good authors are generally cheap. They usually get four-figure advances paid in two or three instalments. Most publishers ought to be able to find a couple of thousand bucks to buy a good MS.

Chasing names has nearly killed publishers before -- ask D.K. Publishing what chasing the first of the new Star Wars books did for their bottom line.

I remember that. I just rang up N. who worked there at the time. He said it was an epic and singular cock-up, the product of hubris and incompetence. I don't think it's terribly relevant to the contention that a few children's books by celebrities are ruining the market.

The way things are in children's book publishing is not good for new writers or writers of new unusual books (since publishers tend to like "more of what's selling, only a little different). If a book about a fuzzy duckling sells great, you can lay money that you'll see at least 6 books about fuzzy ducklings in the next year.

Yes, more of the same is always a popular trend. And yet, there are more unusual books being published today for kids than ever before.

I am frustrated with the direction the children's writing business is headed because I think books for kids SHOULDN'T be seen as a commondity like peanut butter. I think they are supposed to be FOR children...meant for children, written for children, entertaing, enlightening, exciting FOR CHILDREN.

Yes, yes, yes. Still lots of books out there like that and lots of publishers doing just that.

I believe children's books are important to our society because I believe children are important.

This is not a controversial opinion, even inside the offices of Madonna's publishers.

Personally, I believe that even if publishers bought according to QUALITY no matter who wrote it, they would still sell books.

Publishers do. There are different qualities. I can think of six different writers off the top of my head who are very commercial, loved by children, and can't write a sentence for toffee. I can think of six more who get published because they are highly prestigious literary names to have on the list and because they give editors and prospective authors a warm fuzzy feeling - and who don't sell. Where they share a publisher, the first group largely subsidizes the second.

But there would be fewer good children's writers collecting "I'm sorry, but I couldn't get it past marketing at the acquisitions meeting" notes and fewer parents lamenting that "there aren't any good kids books these days."

You point those good writers and those lamenting parents in my direction, CWG. I'll try to sign up the writers who are genuinely good and I'll give those parents a list of books that will have them changing their mind pretty quickly.
 
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