From today's Publisher's Lunch:
Modern Love Breeds Books
Today's Observer notes: "First-time authors looking for a book deal could do worse than to have a piece published in Modern Love, the New York Times Sunday Styles column that tends to provoke eye-rolling among the chattering classes--if they admit to reading the thing at all. But since it started, in 2004, with The Bastard on the Couch author Daniel Jones as its editor from his home in Northampton, Mass., no fewer than nine book contracts have been signed based on Modern Love columns, which, given the vagaries of the publishing industry, is a pretty good batting average. The most recent deals came just last week"--Ellen Graf's THE THIRTEENTH HORSE WON and Melanie Gideon's THE SLIPPERY YEAR, both reported here.
Earlier sales include books by Angela Balcita, Alison Buckholtz, Theo Pauline Nestor, Jennifer Mascia, and Amy Sutherland.
And here's the link to the Observer piece, which notes, "[Elizabeth] Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love has been on The Times paperback best-seller list for over a year, it’s perhaps no coincidence that this style of memoir—a relationship-related epiphany, told most often by a female protagonist—is resonating with readers and editors. It’s like upmarket Chicken Soup for the Formerly Heartbroken Soul That Has Recently Learned How to Live, and Love, Again."
These pieces are so often about disastrous relationships--modern "love" forsooth. So, how do you feel when you're the disastrous ex- and the book comes out?
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