Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The Race for Michael Jackson Books

When I learned of Michael Jackson's death, one of the first things I said was someone is going to make a killing with a book deal, and so it seems that is the case. According to Times Online, the King of Pop was not dead 24 hours before British publishers and writers had mounted the horse and were off on a race to see who would get their book on the shelves first. HarperCollins will have their book out this Friday, Michael Jackson- Legend, Hero, Icon: A Tribute to the King of Pop. The nonfiction publisher for HarperCollins said in the article that the author of the book, Jame Aldis, was given 48 hours to write 10,000 words which she declares is the “the tightest schedule in the history of our company”.

This may seem lightening speed, but the Chinese leave the British in the dust. They put out their tribute to Jacko, Moonwalk in Paradise, in a mere 9 days. It took 48 hours to write in one marathon sit down. According to The Guardian, 'Jiang Xiaoyu and Xing Han subsisted on a diet of coffee and cigarettes to produce the 130,000-word' book.

2 comments:

Elizabeth Bradley said...

The Chinese came up with a much niftier title, don't you think?

Anonymous said...

The race doesn't surprise me at all. Death sells - and that's the truth!