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Much Ado About Publishing

From Blog to Eternity

Nina L. Diamond

It was bad enough when publishers started demanding from their potential authors platforms that were nothing more than gimmicks. Now, the books have to be gimmicks, too. More precisely, books have to be nothing more than stunts. And there have been plenty of them recently.

You do something weird for a year, write a book about it, and your publisher spends a fortune promoting it. Or, you do something weird for a year, blog about it every day, get a book deal for your blog entries, and then your publisher spends a fortune promoting it. A few notable examples:

One guy lived according to the Bible for a year. A woman followed all of Oprah’s advice for a year. And, of course, the stunt that really raised the bar was the woman who made everything in Julia Child’s cookbook. The book was barely on the shelves when out came the movie, Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep, no less, as Julia Child, whose bio was woven into the film version of this tale. The movie got a whole fridge full of Oscar nominations.

So, now, I guess we’ll see even more of these stunt books as bloggers get stars in their eyes.

I have a few ideas for them, including casting suggestions for the inevitable movies. I hope people aren’t already doing these and I’m not aware of it. If they are, well, publishing is even more far gone than I thought because these are parodies:

1) A guy eats hot dogs and baked beans for a year, a different recipe each day. You know the blog, the book, and the movie will have a lot of fart jokes. So, I’m thinking Adam Sandler will be perfect for the part.

2) Everyday for a year, a guy calls a stranger from the phone book and takes that person to lunch. The movie will star Ricky Gervais.

3) A guy makes a list of everything he would never want to do and does one of those things each day for a year. The movie will star Steve Martin.

4) A woman does everything her mother tells her to do for a year without complaining. The movie will star real life mother and daughter Blythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow.

5) A guy already lived “biblically” for a year. So, how about a guy who practices a different religion each day for a year? He’ll need 365 of them, so that has to include the spiritual traditions of indigenous peoples. The movie will star Robin Williams and co-star Bill Maher as the best friend who tries to talk him out of it every day except for the one day when the guy practices atheism.

6) A guy lives like his pet for a year. Now think about this: if you have a dog, you have to pee and poop outside and someone has to use a pooper scooper. Someone has to give you a bath or hose you down in the yard with some suds once a week, or take you to the groomer once a month for a bath and trim. If you have a cat, you have to use a litter box, and your bath consists of licking yourself, and you can’t swivel your neck like a kitty, so good luck with your back. Don’t forget between your toes – cats pay a lot of attention to their toes.

If you have a bird, you have to spend most of your time in a cage. If you have fish, you’re gonna spend a year in water. Go ahead and make that dermatologist appointment now. If you have a snake, you’ll be eating mice. If you have a hamster, hey, enjoy the wheel! In the movie, the guy will be played by – who else? – Jim Carrey.

7) Enough of the vampire books and movies. Let’s turn the tables on all this bloodlust: A woman donates blood once a month, finds out who that blood is given to, and tells each of their stories in her blog. The movie will star humanitarian actress Angelina Jolie, but the producers will want to put their own spin on the movie and have her fall in love with the director of the blood bank, who turns out to be … a vampire. He’ll be played by Jolie’s ex, Billy Bob Thornton. I hope they both kept those vials of blood they used to wear on chains around their necks.

8) Remember that classic Seinfeld episode where George decides to do everything the opposite of the way he’d usually do it? Turns out that brings him a lot of success and happiness, and even lands him a job with the Yankees. Well, a woman decides to “live like George” for a year, doing and saying the opposite of what she’d usually do or what common sense would tell her to do. The movie will star Sandra Bullock. She has some experience in this area, although in her case it didn’t turn out too well. Note to women: if you’re tempted to marry a scuzball who’s named after an outlaw, and his ex is a drug-addicted porn star, you may want to rethink that whole opposite of common sense thing.

Remember, folks, you read it here, first.

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Nina L. Diamond is a journalist, essayist, and the author of Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers & Healers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Omni, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and The Miami Herald.

Ms. Diamond was a writer and performer on Pandemonium, the National Public Radio (NPR) satirical humor program, for its entire run in Miami and select markets nationwide from 1984-1998. As an editor, she works frequently with other authors and journalists on both fiction and non-fiction.

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