Pre-publication Buzz

Someone at Hatchette Books is watching the news. They're monitoring the number of blogposts that mention a certain book, a particular lawsuit, and they're counting up the number of times the story gets air time.

Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hatchette, has plans to publish Fox News reader Rita Cosby's new book, and you know she'll get plenty of notice from her friends at work. Greta van Susteren will certainly do an interview. There will be a five minute slot on the morning show to tout the latest manuscript, and don't forget the close-up on the book's cover so that all the viewers can see what it is they are supposed to buy at their local brick and mortar bookstore.

That comes after, of course, after the book is out and about. Before the lay-down date, however, the publisher likes to see a lot of buzz about something that has yet to be. All that chatter generates pre-orders and that means books are selling before anyone has even seen a single paragraph of Ms. Cosby's opus. What business wouldn't like that?

So what's the buzz? Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern, of Anna Nicole Smith fame, have gotten wind of a brewing scandal and they're threatening to sue everyone. Rita Cosby will claim the two gentlemen had a little fling, it is said, and the two involved parties have made it known that they won't take the aspersions lightly. Yet there's no book out yet, no specific passages to cite. It's pre-publication buzz. It will move books.

As for a lawsuit, it may happen after the evidence is put on paper, but that will generate even more interest and Hachette will sell even more books. Whether the parties of the first part can prove their case is another matter, given that an author with legal counsel can turn a phrase in ways that result in a cold recitation of someone else's quote. Rita Cosby will be reporting what is out there, putting together a story based on hearsay, and using all that data to compile her book. Here's what's being told out there, dear readers, in the drawing rooms of the tabloid's darlings, and Ms. Cosby brings it to you. This friend said Z, the neighbor down the hall said Y, the girls at the Playboy Mansion said S-E-X. Not Rita Cosby, you see, but her sources are to blame for the salacious gossip.

Her theory is that Mr. Birkhead and Mr. Stern conspired to fool the media with a made-up custody battle so that they could generate more money from the tabloids, and the homosexual encounter is somehow linked to the evil cabal. It's the gay sex that's got the news wires humming, not the core idea of the book, because it's the naughty bits that sell. It's up to the legal department at Grand Central Publishing to make sure that the selling business goes forward. If they drop the ball, then the accounting department can calculate a settlement that won't cut too deeply into the book's profits.