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current Monday
Report below!
This week's report by Tim Hall, ULA
How Not To Become Famous:
(Part One of A Monday Report Double Feature!)
In today’s Monday Report I’ll be looking at the first of
two ways a writer should never become famous.
1. By selling your life story for peanuts to a scumbag publisher
Question: What’s better than getting the rights to publish the guaranteed-
bestselling memoir of an attractive, crippled, teenage Afghan war refugee,
with a hardcover first printing of 175,000?
Answer: Not having to pay the dumb wog bitch a cent of royalties!
Sounds like a tasteless joke, doesn’t it? It’s not. That’s precisely the
attitude of Simon & Schuster, which has sunk to a new low with its foray
into American Idol-style publishing: they secured the rights to Farah
Ahmedi’s story of her crippling childhood experiences in war-torn
Afghanistan (and eventual relocation to Chicago), for the paltry sum of
$10,000 – and they’re not going to have to pay her one penny more!
In a recent issue of New York Magazine, Boris Kachka lays out the case
against S&S in a story that is causing convulsions of outrage among
publishing professionals. (Including the 25-year Big Pub veteran and ex-
S&S’er who forwarded me the story in disgust.)
Think about it. Assuming the first printing sells out – and it’s almost a sure
thing, given the publicity the book is getting, S&S [who shall be referred to
as “The SS” from here on] stands to bank somewhere around a cool half
million in profit, assuming a modest profit of $3 per hardback - and that’s
only the first printing. Depending on how much “legs” – er, “momentum”
the book has, the “upside potential” for the SS is in the millions.
And Farah Ahmedi will never see another dime.
No doubt the enlightened PC thieves at the SS don’t see it that way: I have
no doubt that they are at this very moment down at the company canteen,
guzzling their caramel mocha lattes and free-range biscotti while
convincing themselves what a noble service they are performing for this
young woman.
Ahmedi, for her part, at least seems to think so. According to the New
York story she’s a paragon of humble gratitude, and says money isn’t the
issue (Ha! Double Ha with caramel mocha on top!) She even, bless her
young soul, says she wants to use the money for a down payment on a
house. (As you can see she hasn’t been in America very long) Yes, she’s
determined to be part of this country’s “ownership society” – she’s just
not going to own any part of her own million-dollar story.
Welcome to America, Farah.
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Tim Hall is a writer living in Jersey City, NJ.
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