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!

Comments

John-David | April 17, 2008, 11:02am | #

Seeing as how women have an obligation to look hot for men, I don't see what the fuss is.

DannyK | April 17, 2008, 11:08am | #

Man... that cover is hilarious!

ed | April 17, 2008, 11:09am | #

Vanity press bashing? On a blog?
Isn't every personal blog out there merely an electronic form of vanity publishing?

Abdul | April 17, 2008, 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 | April 17, 2008, 11:22am | #

If you liked *this* book, you might like:

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/thelittlejew.htm

D.A. Ridgely | April 17, 2008, 11:35am | #

Does the picture remind anyone else of Bewitched?

mitch | April 17, 2008, 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 | April 17, 2008, 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.

Orange Line Special | April 17, 2008, 11:52am | #

The PlasticSurgeon seems to have forgotten a couple areas.

T | April 17, 2008, 12:06pm | #

What, there's no Frog and Toad slash out there already? Somebody's just not googling hard enough.

SugarFree | April 17, 2008, 12:09pm | #

I'm not normally a fan of book burning, but I might make an exception here...

Colin | April 17, 2008, 12:21pm | #

Great Dead Kennedys reference!

J sub D | April 17, 2008, 12:21pm | #

Newsweek, pwned.
That has got to be embarrassing.

D.A. Ridgely | April 17, 2008, 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.

Jim Bob | April 17, 2008, 12:31pm | #

It'll never replace Heather Has Two Mommies as literature.

SugarFree | April 17, 2008, 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 | April 17, 2008, 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 | April 17, 2008, 1:10pm | #

Whats next... My Beautifull Granny..??

Oo Grandma.. why U got a huge nose??...:):)

BakedPenguin | April 17, 2008, 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 | April 17, 2008, 1:30pm | #

Does the picture remind anyone else of Bewitched?

No, but the title and concept make me think of MILFhunter.

R C Dean | April 17, 2008, 1:30pm | #

Whats next... My Beautifull Granny..??

Nah. Holy Crap, Mom! Nice Hooters!

Russ 2000 | April 17, 2008, 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 | April 17, 2008, 1:42pm | #

The PlasticSurgeon seems to have forgotten a couple areas.

LoneWacko finally says something worthwhile.

Prolefeed | April 17, 2008, 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.

ChrisO | April 17, 2008, 1:53pm | #

It does remind me of Bewitched, except that the cartoon enhanced mommy here has nothing on Elizabeth Montgomery.

joshua corning | April 17, 2008, 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.

John COsmo Jackson | April 17, 2008, 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.

David T | April 17, 2008, 4:10pm | #

Can we have a book called *Heather Has Two Beautiful Mommies*?

Stevo Darkly | April 17, 2008, 4:20pm | #

I'm writing a book called Your Mommy Is Beautiful, Which Is Why I Banged Her.

Scooby | April 17, 2008, 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.