“ ‘Skinny Bitch’ has a straightforward message that some people may find tough to take,” said David Steinberger, the chief executive of Perseus Books Group. The publisher makes no apology for the book’s packaging. “How is that possible? I can’t even wrap my mind around that.” “They’re mad that they spent $14 on a book that was not what they thought, but they’re not mad that chickens are having beaks chopped off their faces?” asked Ms. Freedman, who quit her modeling agency job five years ago to become an animal-rights advocate and kindergarten enrichment program teacher in Wyckoff, N.J., said she was surprised that any reader would be offended by the book’s more serious content. We just knew marketing was going to be the key.” We just thought, let’s be light, funny, have a fun, catchy name and put a cute picture on the cover of the book. “It’s not your typical diet book, and there’s a lot of animal-rights information. Barnouin, who gave up modeling eight years ago to study holistic nutrition. “Yes, the material in the book is not, for so many reasons, the easiest sell,” said Ms. (Among their dieting precepts: “Soda is liquid Satan.”) Freedman wrote, acknowledges that the book delivers its message with a spoonful of spice rather than being a straightforward treatise. Barnouin, who did most of the research while Ms. McGlinchey said she was so fed up that she didn’t even finish the book. “It seemed to be pushing more of a PETA agenda,” she said, referring to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal-rights advocacy group. So she was surprised to encounter chapters on meat and poultry farming practices. 3.ĭefying conventional publishing wisdom, which says that a book must break into the best-seller lists in its first weeks on sale or risk sinking into oblivion, the book, which is a year and a half old, has also gathered steam despite not being sold in mass-market retailers like Wal-Mart, which can often account for a significant proportion of sales. 12 on the New York Times best-seller list of paperback advice, how-to and miscellaneous books. When E! News picked up the story in June, the title took off in the United States. From an initial print run of fewer than 10,000 copies, there are now more than 245,000 in print.īut it wasn’t until Victoria Beckham, also known as the pop star Posh Spice and wife of the soccer player David Beckham, was photographed carrying a copy of it in a Los Angeles boutique in May that the book started climbing the best-seller charts in Britain. Ever since Running Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, first published the raucous, profanity-laced diet book “Skinny Bitch” in December 2005, it has sold steadily.
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