Life after being debunked

Remember when James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces was discovered to be a collection of "a million little lies"? The story was everywhere in the summer of 2006. Since then, several other memoirs have been discovered as being not quite factual. Other authors have been accused of plagiarism. Is there literary life after you’ve been caught?

Possibly. But it’s difficult.

A couple years after the Million Little Pieces debacle, James Frey released his first novel, Bright Shiny Morning, last May to reviews that didn’t really pan the novel, but didn’t really call it the next great American masterpiece either. Former Publisher’s Weekly editor-in-chief Sara Nelson wrote in her review: “Yet the guy has something: an energy, a drive, a relentlessness, maybe, that can pull readers along, past the voice, past the stock characters, past the clichés. Bright Shiny Morning is a train wreck of a novel, but it’s un-put-downable, a real page-turner—in what may come to be known as the Frey tradition.” The novel went on to appear on the Times’ best seller list. By all accounts, Frey is currently at work on his next novel.

In March 2008, Margaret B. Jones was caught fabricating a memoir of life as a foster kid in south central Los Angeles. Her sister tattled on her to her publisher, Riverhead, after seeing a feature story in The New York Times. Jones’ book, Love and Consequences, ceased production. Her book tour was canceled.

These cases weren’t enough to deter another author from trying his hand at inventing his autobiography. A couple of months ago, Herman Rosenblat’s tale Angel at the Fence was discovered to be a hoax. The jig was up when reporters at The New Republic asked Holocaust historians to verify Rosenblat’s claims. It didn’t take long for his story to crumble. No telling where he’ll go from here.

Finally, this week’s edition of Newsweek has an update on the new life of Kaavya Viswanathan. In 2007, Viswanathan was accused of plagiarizing pieces of her novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, from various sources including Chick Lit authors Megan McCafferty and Sophie Kinsella. The similarities were tough to blame on happenstance. Viswanathan lost her publishing contract, the book was pulled from shelves and DreamWorks dropped their plans to make a movie based on the book. Two years later, she’s now a law student at Georgetown and seems to have put her literary aspirations to rest for good. Maybe she’s studying copyright law?

Generally, Americans love a come back story. However, I think it’s safe to say that if you’re writing a memoir, it’d be best not to put yourself in a situation where your credibility may be compromised. Members of the media are growing increasingly weary of memoirs, so much so that an author of ours built a website called "A Million Little Proofs" to prove all the claims he made in his memoir of being an orphan were real. The website was a great place for us to direct media members when we were pitching his book.

As publicists, we spend a good deal of time trying to build credibility for our authors with members of the media. Once that credibility is put in jeopardy, it can be difficult to get it back. Even Frey was slammed by various media outlets when Bright Shiny Morning came out. If you’re working on a memoir, tell the truth, check your facts and be honest with your publisher. And remember: you can still write a compelling story, even if it’s not your personal biography. Just make sure you’re writing your own thoughts.

Prepping Authors for Talk Shows: Part 1 - Booking

This is the first of a series I'll be doing this week on prepping authors for nationally syndicated talk shows. One of our authors, Wendy Kays, author of Game Widow will be taping a segment this week on the Dr. Phil Show, and I thought I'd walk everyone through the process of booking, soundbyte prep, networking, and segment follow-up.

Booking a national talk show

Since so many authors rightly dream of being on shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil, the latter reaching 6.4 million viewers daily, it's important to clarify how these bookings come about. Many authors assume these shows are pitched just like other national TV spots, with their publicist calling or emailing the producer with a segment idea. In most cases, this actually couldn't be further from the truth. Since anyone can email or phone in a story idea to these programs if they have a producers' contact info, these producers are getting bombarded with completely original, wholly inspired, absolutely exclusive pitches every day - so pitching alone, you see, is not what seals the deal. A helpful step yes, but authors, don't get mad at your publicist if their pitches to Oprah go unanswered - this is the most difficult booking to get, period. Even for celebrities. Even for politicians.

Ok, so how do authors get on those shows? Here are some tips that worked for Wendy Kays.

1. Have a hot topic.
Wendy Kays wrote a book on video game addiction - a huge story right now, especially since games like Second Life, World of Warcraft, and soon Spore are slowly seducing whole legions of gamers out there. Moreover, the title of her book in itself is not only punny and clever, but comes up frequently on Google searches when other game widows are looking for a resource. Never underestimate the power of the buzzword.

2. Start small and work up.
If you follow talk shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil, you'll probably notice that these shows don't often break news stories, but follow popular trends. This is why it is vital for new authors to get a platform established by allowing their publicist to start small (i.e., local) and work their author's name and book up through the media outlet ranks. Our own publicity efforts for Game Widow had just gotten underway when this opportunity arose, and one of those publicity events was with a small college newspaper who wanted to interview Wendy - which she promptly and enthusiastically responded to.

3. Have your website up and running well before the pub date.
Wendy's website was a crucial part of securing this booking. After hearing about the book, a producer from Dr. Phil found Wendy's site, which directed her to Wendy's publicist. She then called our office to invite Wendy to the show.

4. Make your website as informative and credible as possible.
There are two things that Wendy did especially right on her website.

First, she had links to her press materials, which help producers find out more about a prospective guest. These press materials also provided her publicist's contact info, making it easy for the producer to track us down.

Secondly, Wendy had done plenty of work on the front end to secure key endorsements for her book, and listed them on her website. This boosted her credibility, and also connects her to a wider network of experts on this topic whose names will now come up on Google searches for video game addiction. (Remember - TV producers are just like us, putting on their pants one leg at a time, and using Google). So while your publisher or publicist may help you with the endorsement process, it's always a good idea to start contacting prominent authors or experts with a similar field / book genre early on, ideally 3-6 months before your book pubs.

5. Clarify the nature of the interview.
If you're a book publicist, it's important to know just what role your author will be playing in the segment when a talk show producer comes calling. As you can well imagine, getting counseled on Dr. Phil for poor decision-making is not exactly the same thing as offering an expert opinion. Fortunately, Wendy's expert thoughts were just what Dr. Phil's producer wanted, so we were able to quickly establish everything Wendy needed to know to prep for the segment.

Hopefully this clarifies some of the mystery behind those elusive talk show bookings. It's a lot more back-to-basics than you'd think, no?

Stop by tomorrow for the next in our Prepping Author for Talk Shows series: Soundbyte prep.

Writing a memoir? Prove it.

In this day and age, publishing a memoir is a tricky business. Amidst the fall-out of authors such as Margaret Jones, James Frey, JT LeRoy and others, the industry has become somewhat jaded with memoirists. In other words, the proof is no longer in the pudding…it’s in the recipe.

The challenge for memoir writers lies in every stage of the game. From writing to editing, publishing to promoting, authors must go through extensive lengths to prove the validity of their life stories.

Take Rob Mitchell for example. Abandoned by his parents at age 3, raised in the American orphanage system and homeless at 17, Mitchell is now one of the country’s top financial advisers. He knew that if he ever wrote a book about his life, he’d have to make an extra effort to show skeptics that the events of his life were true to the core. And that’s exactly what he did.

In his memoir, Castaway Kid (Tyndale), Mitchell relives his troubled childhood as one of the last “lifers” in the American orphanage system. He spent months researching his personal time-line, digging up official documents to support his memoir. He even produced a website to prove its validity. The site includes documents from his case file at the children’s home; psychiatric reports on him, his mother and father; letters from people involved in his life; and recorded interviews.

As Mitchell's publicist, I think this was a wise move. Recently, I was pitching Mitchell for an interview opportunity on an NPR program to talk about his life growing up in an orphanage. The producer immediately responded to my pitch expressing her genuine interest in the interview, but she also said she couldn't help but feel weary about having a memoir writer on the program in light of all the negative attention swirling around falsified memoirs.

Thanks to Mitchell's research on the front end, I was able to offer his website, http://www.amillionlittleproofs.com/, as a resource to secure the producer's interest. She requested the book along with a press kit, and I'm still awaiting word on a follow through.

For those authors out there interested in writing a memoir, I'd advise you to take my client's lead. You never know when you'll be asked to prove it.