Boy, that's a lot of midlisters

[ksmith]

From Radar, by way of MediaBistro:

HarperCollins Book Deal for Jenna Bush (Radar)
It's hard out there for would-be first-time authors — unless your dad is the president, y'all! First daughter Jenna Bush has landed the book deal she was fishing for, with HarperCollins announcing plans to publish Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope this fall. The News Corp.-owned publishing house pursued the deal in spite of a $300,000 price tag that had given other suitors pause.

Rest of story via the above link.

I know it's my publisher. I know publishing is a business, and this book may well make money. But HarperCollins has lost money on these sorts of books before--non-fiction by the media darlings of the moment--and yet they keep going after them.

And the midlists keep shrinking...

Comments

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

I wonder if my father would be interested in getting into politics...

In a way, I feel bad for her. I suspect the price tag is all about the name, but even if the book is excellent, most folks are just going to write it off as another celebrity bit.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Unrelated, but I didn't know she'd interned with UNICEF. Good for her.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

And then well-meaning family & friends see this news story and assume that 300K deals are typical for first-time authors....

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

But that's for a book with photographs. If it's all writing, you get even more, right???

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Totally! And our books are longer, too!

[equesgal.livejournal.com]

What a nice chunk of change. Bah.

[hoosier-red.livejournal.com]

Mmyeah. Wonder what cut her ghostwriter is going to get?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

You wondered that too, huh?