Snooki to Use a Ghostwriter?

MTV Jersey Shore star Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi is looking to parlay her reality-television success into becoming a possible best-selling romance author. The 22-year-old is set to publish A Shore Thing in January 2011 through Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Her publisher described the book as the story of "a girl looking for love on the boardwalk (one full of big hair, dark tans, and fights galore)." No word on whether Snooki will be using a ghostwriter, though it seems highly probable. Over six million people tune in to Jersey Shore, which is now MTV's highest-rated show.

E-Books Surge

Amazon announced that e-books are outselling hardcover books by almost two to one. CEO Jeff Bezos told CNET it's "astonishing, when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years and Kindle books for 33 months."

The Other Bible

A glimpse into the making of the "Big Book," the bible of Alcoholics Anonymous, can now be revealed thanks to a newly released early manuscript. Since its release in 1939, the Big Book has sold over 27 million copies, been translated into more than 50 languages and spawned dozens of 12-step programs covering everything from gambling and overeating to drugs and debt. As it turns out, the original manuscript was given quite a peer review by an estimated 400 editors, doctors, psychiatrists and trusted associates of AA cofounders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith. The most contentious parts of the Big Book draft seemed to focus on the spiritual aspect: how to deal with God and religion, which were seen as intrinsic parts of the program's recovery process. The newly released manuscript, edits and all, is called The Book that Started it All.

Kindle Lives! Again!

Wasn't the iPad supposed to kill off the Kindle? So far, Kindle is doing just fine. Sales for each are about the same (3.5 million). So what was all the hubbub, bub? Oh, yeah—Kindle slashed its price to $149 while the iPad costs 5 times more. But Kindle just may be better for book reading: it's much lighter, smaller and easier to see in daylight, it lasts 10 times longer, it offers 10 times the number of books, and it has no contract and no monthly fee. Oh, that's why Kindle is still in play.

Banned But Not Forgotten

September is time again for the American Library Association's Banned Books Week (BBW), an annual event celebrating free and open access to information while condemning censorship by spotlighting the actual or attempted banning of books across America. Many of the books featured during BBW were not banned thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers and members of the community who fought to retain the books in library collections. The importance of our First Amendment rights are particularly highlighted. BBW is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; the American Society of Journalists and Authors; the Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. For more information contact the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom at 1-800-545-2433, ext. 4220, or bbw@ala.org.

Immortality

Stieg Larsson, currently the world's most successful dead author, has chalked up another major accomplishment: he is Kindle's first million-seller! The deceased Swede's Millennium trilogy includes The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

Budget Saver

E-books are the only way to save education budgets, according to a growing group of politicians, educators and publishers. In England, it is estimated that using digital-format textbooks could save the UK hundreds of millions of pounds and the jobs of thousands of teachers. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the record as saying that California's textbooks should be put online to reduce the $350 million it currently spends on printed books. Not only are e-books far more cost-efficient, but they also allow for easy updates, regional specializing and the embedding of video and audio. Add to that their ability to coordinate with online test-taking and a student's chance to digitally bookmark, highlight and search.

Online Travel

Blog tours are becoming the new book tours, according to industry experts. By using the Internet to reach readers around the globe, author save time and money on travel costs. Appearing on blogs can have a tremendous impact on book sales. G&P experienced this firsthand when one client, a conservative radio talk show host, wound up with three endorsements from bloggers—and, three days later, an order from Barnes & Noble for 20,000 copies of his book.

On My Own

Once again we see that the independent publishing naysayers are knocking self-publishing. But they are leaving out the most important fact of all: for most self-publishers, there is no choice. The mainstream publishers simply don't want them. However, to suggest that self-publishing is a dead end is a lie. Many traditional publishers even admit that they’ve found their books among the self-published. Even if mainstream publishing is not a writer’s goal, he or she has the right to spend his or her own money and take the chance of self-publishing his or her own work; it’s a gamble, just as mainstream publishers gamble on manuscripts. What’s the difference if you do it on your own?

For John Kremer's Self-Publishing Hall of Fame, go to: http://www.bookmarket.com/selfpublish.html

Between the Pages

Ads in books are making a comeback. Yes, friends, there was a time, back in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ’80s, when paperbacks sported advertisements and not just promotions for the publisher’s other books. These were real ads selling products from music to appliances. Well, get ready for their return: Houghton Mifflin has told the Wall Street Journal that the move is "inevitable." Think about the possibilities for this in e-books, where you can continuously slot in new ads and, better still, tailor them to the reader! E-books may become the new TV shows of the 21st century—selling soap, food, cars, appliances and everything else you find in the traditional media!