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Plastic Surgery Disasters
On Tuesday, Newsweek devoted
over 1200 words to
My Beautiful Mommy, a children's book about plastic
surgery. Since then, news of the tummytuck-touting tome has
shot through the blogosphere, inspiring the sort of irate
commentary ordinarily reserved for It's Just a
Plant or Frog and Toad Do Dallas. (*)
All of which might be understandable if the book had any ... readers. As Teresa Nielsen Hayden notes,
This story is equal parts hokum and hot air. You'd think that somewhere in those three [Web] pages of titillating handwringing, [Newsweek writer Karen] Springen would have gotten round to mentioning that My Beautiful Mommy is a self-published vanity-press book available only from its "publisher"--or, presumably, from [author-surgeon] Dr. Michael Salzhauer.
Big Tent Books (not to be confused with Big Tent Entertainment) is a vanity press and marketing and fulfillment operation.... [It] has the usual problem of vanity presses: zero to lousy sales and distribution. They're a lot better at making books than they are at promoting them. Only a few of their titles are even listed at Amazon, and those are listed badly--half the normal publisher-furnished information is missing. Sales are minimal.
My Beautiful Mommy is not one of the books Big Tent lists on Amazon. It has no ISBN that I can detect--and this close to its publication date, I should be able to detect one. Clearly, this book is not destined to make its way to the shelves of your local bookstore.
But maybe it is now, thanks to Newsweek's publicity blitz.
Footnote: There is not, in fact, a book called Frog and Toad Do Dallas. But if you draw it yourself, staple it together, and send a copy to Newsweek, you just might have a hit on your hands!
|4.17.08 @ 11:02AM|#
Seeing as how women have an obligation to look hot for men, I don't see what the fuss is.
ed|4.17.08 @ 11:09AM|#
Vanity press bashing? On a blog?
Isn't every personal blog out there merely an electronic form of
vanity publishing?
Abdul|4.17.08 @ 11:22AM|#
I once found a copy of "My Mom's Kidney's Name is Lucy," a book written to help kids cope with the fact that his or her mom is alive thanks to the organ transplanting. Apparently, the practice doesn't appear ghoulish if the body part has a name.
PeeDub|4.17.08 @ 11:22AM|#
If you liked *this* book, you might like:
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/thelittlejew.htm
|4.17.08 @ 11:35AM|#
Jesse, why are you trying to sully my fond memories of Frog and Toad, one of the first books I ever read?
Brian Sorgatz|4.17.08 @ 11:51AM|#
Footnote: There is not, in fact, a book called Frog and Toad
Do Dallas. But if you draw it yourself, staple it together, and
send a copy to Newsweek, you just might have a hit on your
hands!
That's pretty close to what happened in the
"Peterotica" episode of Family Guy.
T|4.17.08 @ 12:06PM|#
What, there's no Frog and Toad slash out there already? Somebody's just not googling hard enough.
D.A. Ridgely|4.17.08 @ 12:27PM|#
SugarFree, I just love feministing.com and especially the way the Oreck vacuum cleaner ads pop up between the cries of righteous indignation.
|4.17.08 @ 12:42PM|#
D.A. Ridgely,
I adblock on firefox, so I've never seen them. That's
hilarious.
I'm sure they've got some hate mail about selling "things that
suck" when I'm sure none of them do...
D.A. Ridgely|4.17.08 @ 1:05PM|#
It'll never replace Heather Has Two Mommies as
literature
If only Daniel Patrick Moynihan could have found a publisher for
his children's book on urban illegitimacy, Heather Has Too Many
Daddies...
Eliza|4.17.08 @ 1:10PM|#
Whats next... My Beautifull Granny..??
Oo Grandma.. why U got a huge nose??...:):)
BakedPenguin|4.17.08 @ 1:15PM|#
Does the picture remind anyone else of Bewitched?
DAR, You're just pining for Paul Lynde.
Great Dead Kennedys reference!
Obviously, she trusted her mechanic.
Ska|4.17.08 @ 1:30PM|#
Does the picture remind anyone else of Bewitched?
No, but the title and concept make me think of MILFhunter.
Russ 2000|4.17.08 @ 1:41PM|#
LOL, I have that DK's album cover hanging on my living room wall. The back cover. It's a photo right near my childhood home.
Scooby|4.17.08 @ 1:42PM|#
The PlasticSurgeon seems to have forgotten a couple areas.
LoneWacko finally says something worthwhile.
|4.17.08 @ 1:50PM|#
The PlasticSurgeon seems to have forgotten a couple
areas.
LoneWacko finally says something worthwhile.
Ummm, not really. What would you change on her, LoneWhackoff? Looks
fine to me.
|4.17.08 @ 1:53PM|#
It does remind me of Bewitched, except that the cartoon enhanced mommy here has nothing on Elizabeth Montgomery.
|4.17.08 @ 3:09PM|#
They're a lot better at making books than they are at
promoting them. Only a few of their titles are even listed at
Amazon, and those are listed badly--half the normal
publisher-furnished information is missing. Sales are
minimal.
How friggin hard could it be to publish a book and do the extra 15
min of work needed to get it on Amazon?!?!
WTF?!?! I do find it sad that Vanity presses fail out of idiocy
rather then a lack of demand.
|4.17.08 @ 3:43PM|#
ANYONE can get their shitty book on Amazon. You would think any
"press", vanity or not, would at least manage that.
That's setting a pretty low fucking bar there.
Scooby|4.17.08 @ 5:24PM|#
Prolefeed,
Are you kidding? There's about a dozen things I could pick out
(including things a plastic surgeon couldn't help with, like her
obviously undersized and misshapen feet- they're smaller than her
kid's feet- it's a wonder she can balance that oversized head over
it).
Just kidding- I took it to mean that the doc didn't make her tits
big enough. I guess if you have to explain the joke, it isn't that
funny. Maybe that's not what he was saying at all, and I'm just
assuming he has a sense of humor that hasn't been evident any of
his past output.
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