A History of Book Trailers; Cee Lo Green Is Writing a Memoir
Today in books and publishing: Cee Lo Green promises his memoir will help you "discover crazy," Jackie Collins is rewriting an old favorite and republishing it as an e-book, and book
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Cee Lo Green -- who in 2010 wrote a very big hit called "F--- You" that became an even bigger hit when it was retitled "Forget You" for radio -- is writing a memoir. For reasons we're not entirely clear on, we've taken to referring to the untitled memoir in John Malkovich's voice from Burn After Reading, adding another layer of prestige to the project, which won't hit stores until next year. Grand Central Publishing will publish the book co-written by Rolling Stone contributing editor David Wild. Terms weren't disclosed, but Green promised readers the moon in a statement:
"FORGET YOU? After reading my book, there will be no doubt that I am meant to be. You will enter into the supernatural, the surreal, and extraordinary. As CeeLo Green, a.k.a. ‘everybody’s brother,’ I will make you a believer. I talk about art imitating life; YOU discover CRAZY.”
Sounds a bit like Girl, Interrupted, but we'll give it a whirl. [The Hollywood Reporter]
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You can add Jackie Collins -- author of Hollywood Wives and Hollywood Wives: The Next Generation -- to the growing list of name authors dabbling in e-book self-publishing. She's offering up "a complete rewrite" of her 1979 novel The Bitch, because she wasn't happy with how the original came out, and didn't care much for the movie version either. For Nicholas Carr, who has been sounding the alarm lately about the danger to readers if the "fixity" of a text can be loss by an author tweaking and revising their work over time, this is the ultimate doomsday scenario. And to think, it started with Jackie Collins. [GalleyCat]
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Book trailers, for us, tend to fall into the category of 'pleasant, but non-essential.' We can never shake the feeling that making it was much more fun than actually watching, which leads to inevitable questions about much we'll like the project. It helps if it's for a book we're going to buy anyway, like Gary Shteyngart's novel Super Sad True Love Story, which was funny, without being precious or self-satisfied. Maybe it's that we can only watch book trailers from books we know we're going to buy. Based on The Guardian's brief history of the book trailer, that might not be a terrible idea, though we'll miss out on the odd and terrific ways titles like Lane Smith's It's A Book are to young readers [The Guardian]
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