Comments on: The Vocabulary: “Book-like Product”

By: Olleymae

Olleymae — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:47:27 +0000

I meant to put Hilary Duff’s name in there somewhere…

My question was in regards to her book deal.

By: Olleymae

Olleymae — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:46:04 +0000

Michael,
I’m so glad you did this post! The other day on Twitter, people were saying, “Every time a celeb gets a book deal, a writer loses a pen…”

I kinda got sad about it, thinking, “poor little us, slaving away to get a book published, and she just bats her eyelashes and a book deal appears,” but then I wondered if she may have actually put some hard work into the book-like product.

So I guess I’m echoing KT Horning above, is it possible that she thought up the plot, spent hours typing it out, went through countless revisions, and all that writerly stuff, or is she “lip synching” like KT asks?

By: christine tripp

christine tripp — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:31:04 +0000

I like the term “book like product” (though it’s not nearly harsh enough in my mind) It’s comparable to calling kraft slices a “cheese like product”… cause the term the company uses now has me completely confused. What the heck is “cheese food”?
Oh, that brings up the subject, should the publisher of these “book like products” call themselves a manufacterer?

By: Carrie

Carrie — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:56:10 +0000

I’ll never forget a photo op moment from The English Roses publicity tour. Madonna was reading to a handful of children, and they started to fidget, chat, and generally ignore her and her story. Oh, it was glorious! Laser beams shot out of her eyes and you could practically hear her internal scream, “I AM MADONNA. YOU WILL BE SILENT.” And then she turned to the cameras and played it off rather graciously. But I heard it. I heard her silent scream.

By: Munk

Munk — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:20:44 +0000

Well put Rhonda… I agree. What little mind share I gave to these products in the past will now be reduced to none-such. However, on occasion I may chuckle at the term. Where does it go from here? Will the oldest profession become known as a “love-like-product” or perhaps on an environmentally macabre tangent, will we one day be forced to breathe an “air-like-product”?

By: Roving Wool

Roving Wool — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:51:11 +0000

[...] The Vocabulary: “Book-like Product” » Upstart Crow Literary [...]

By: ae

ae — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:01:33 +0000

Or maybe she is saying,”Shhh to the kids. The adults want to hear my story.”

By: Bev

Bev — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:45:23 +0000

Point very well taken, Michael. Thanks.

As an aside, I’d love to hear snarky caption suggestions for the above photo….
“Shhh! I didn’t really write this, but don’t tell!”

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:12:45 +0000

Do the book-like products hog shelf space and dollars that might be spent on actual books? Sure. But then, so do the magazines, tchotchkes, stuffed animals, puppets, DVDs, bookmarks, booklights, light-brites, night-lights, black lights, and whatever other junk a bookstore puts on its shelves.

It helps to think of the book-like products as more like those things and less like books. They promise a certain return on investment, they drag a certain atypical bookstore customer to the register. That person was likely never going to wander in and buy a Prelutsky book, but now, maybe by chance, she’ll pick one up along with Mr. Peabo Bryson’s Apples or whatever.

They look like books on the outside, yes, but they function in the market differently. And so should be viewed as the Other.

By: KT Horning

KT Horning — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:48:43 +0000

How much involvement does a celebrity actually have in the creation of a book-like product? Are they generally doing the literary equivalent of lip synching?