The New York Times detailed Jenny Sanford's ongoing rise to prosperity through her husband's infidelity. The article is actually a cleverly disguised guide to capitalizing off of your cheating, no good, dirtball politician husband who didn't even care enough to cover his tracks.

Step 1: Book deal. Per the Times: "She is writing a memoir, "Staying True," to be released in April by Ballantine Books, about grappling with her husband's marital infidelity." Not unprecedented by any means, though, granted, Elizabeth Edwards has a slightly higher profile than Ms. Sanford in addition to, you know, cancer. Make sure your book touches on themes of survival and—yes—resilience. Make sure the everywoman can relate to your struggle, even though the reality of your wealth and privilege makes your story otherwise totally inaccessible to most people who've been through what you have. Dina McGreevy definitely did it right, though. I mean, that cover!
Step 2: Trademark that shit. Elizabeth Edwards and Hillary Clinton made a misstep here. Like the old Spaceballs line, moichendising! The Times notes that Jenny Sanford's taking the smart step of trademarking her name, so she can sell "clothing, mugs, 'other household items,' stickers, decals, notepads." I can't wait until Jenny Sanford's Locate-A-Husband GPS Tracker (Now With International Capabilities!) hits stores. She already missed Black Friday, but I've got faith she can get this bad boy out in time for Christmas, so wives may spy on their "bad boys" everywhere.
Step 3: Barbara Walters. Always Barbara Walters. If you don't get your catharsis on with Barbara Walters, you don't get your membership card. And take a guess who made this year's list of Babs' Ten Most Fascinating People. Hint: It's not the transvestite who "peed" on Adam Lambert. Sure, there are other ways to get on TV: if you're Brian Grazer's ex-wife, just rewrite The First Wives' Club as a USA mini-series. But did she make the Times today? Nope.
Step 4: Web Presence. Once you lock down THE_REAL_JENNY_SANFORD, get rid of those pesky fake Twitter accounts, verify your own, set up your own website, and get music recommendations via @ by Questlove, you'll know you've equipped yourself for electronic success. Be viral, be with the people. Or as Miss Sanford would have it: "She has set up a privately financed personal Web site, complete with news releases and photographs." Nice. Silda, we still await your Tweets anxiously, so you can throw down the subtle RT on free throws like this.
Step 5: Get into politics. You've already proven you can deal with both sleazeballs and scandal. Anyone who says you're not ready for politics is clearly a moron. And the best way to start: by endorsing the candidate who's going to win your Pussyhound Husband's position after his constituency gives that tail-chaser the boot. "[Sanford] has endorsed a candidate to succeed her husband, State Representative Nikki Haley, a Republican and the only woman in the race." Just like that, you come off as both a strong feminist and a dedicated party-line driver, setting yourself up for political support further down the road, when you....
Step 6: Run for office. "Genius" is right.

Speakeasy reports that the Regretsy mastermind is April Winchell, well-known comedic human. Notably, her new book publishers admit:

"We're not going to use everything from the Web site," said Jill Schwartzman, the purchasing editor at Random House. "The ones we're going to pick are the ones that work for a book-reading audience."

So read everything on Regretsy.com for free, or buy the book and read less, for a fee. Just mail April Winchell a check and continue to read her website!

The New York Observer reports that the deal, with publisher Little, Brown

comes on the heels of the 34-year-old reporter's New York Times Magazine cover story on the Obamas' marriage, which argued that "the Obamas mix politics and romance in a way that no first couple quite have before."

It could not be determined whether Ms. Kantor has secured the Obamas' cooperation, but the fact that her story featured an extensive interview with them in the Oval Office seemed to indicate that she is going into the project with a good working relationship with them.

We took a look at Kantor's Times Magazine piece in October, and it wasn't bad. The Obama-marriage-as-metaphor-for-Obama-presidency theme seemed forced and over-written at times, but there's no question, really, that Kantor—a seven-year Times veteran with apparent White House access—will be able to turn out a good Obama book.

The main question: Will the First Family and its patriarch remain popular enough to justify such a huge deal for an Obama book not written by an Obama? (Presidential books can be huge successes even if the POTUS in question has been out of the limelight for a while—so long as they're memoirs and their subject got a blow job in the White House; see Clinton, Bill.) We've been hearing about Obama fatigue for so long we've almost burnt out on the burnout.

And the risk is two-fold for a book like Kantor's, which appears to be more portraiture in the vein of her Times Magazine piece, not an investigative project or a big-picture political take. Little, Brown is gambling that the public remains invested not just in Obama the President, but the Obama myth itself—what even the White House social secretary calls "the Obama brand."

As Malcolm Gladwell so memorably (did not) put it: "Obamamania must be shown to be less a short-term hysteria and more a chronic condition, like rickets."

Quote on this breaking news, directly from Sheila: "I look forward to once again having a reason to sit in a coffeeshop for hours and hours with my laptop." Yea!

But that is probably not all of it, as that financial disclosure only covers the period before she suddenly resigned as governor of the Alaska.

Still: a lot of money!

What is weirder, though, in her financial disclosure: last April Sarah Palin created a company called "Pie Spy." No one knows what this company does. Just that it is called "Pie Spy," and it is a "marketing" company. And:

It is listed with a North American Industry Classification System code corresponding to companies that provide services to the elderly or to people with disabilities.

But no one will say anything about this "Pie Spy" company that markets secret pies to crippled old people! What does it mean?

One of the internet's most important legacies is its absolute destruction of credentialism. So who better to explain it to the world than New York Times TV-watcher-and-internet-looker-and-writer-about Virginia Heffernan, the one person that every American too old to figure out how to get onto the internet turns to to tell them about said internet, in a magazine column? And tell us, Leon Neyfakh, could the book have a name and theme commensurate to the preposterousness of its ambition?

In the proposal [for the book, tentatively titled The Pleasures of the Internet: How to Live in the New Online Civilization], a copy of which was obtained by the Transom, Ms. Heffernan's book is described as "a complete aesthetics of the Internet" that will treat the Web as a complex work of representational art, complete with "a poetics, a scale, a palette, a rhythm, a sensibility, a set of rituals and spectacles, a system of metaphors and an emotional range."

Haha yes. Very good. A good book to give to, say, your grandmother who retired as a college literature professor a long, long time ago. Explaining the entire internet in a book: Actually a very internetty type of thing to do!
[NYO]

Two books are coming out about Sully and the dramatic(ally short) Flight 1549 that crashed in the Hudson. One of them is Sully's own book, Highest Duty. Let's be honest: Dude's a great pilot, but maybe not a born writer of dramatic tales. The book is called "Highest Duty." Not "How to Crash Land a Plane in a Motherfucking River and 99 Other Life Skills Every Badass Should Know." Which would have been our title recommendation, but it's not a big thing.

But the other book, Miracle on the Hudson, excerpted in USA Today, is full of passengers talking about how they were all scared out of their gourd, which is really what the public wants to hear after things like this. Scary things! The jet shook after hitting the geese; the engines stopped and caught fire; a lady screamed. The smell of "a mix of jet fuel, burning hair and burning flesh" permeated the cabin. The passengers...acted about how you would probably act, in such a situation. Ridiculously.

Lori Lightner burst out: "Oh, crap, we're crashing." Then she quickly prayed, "Forgive me for everything I've done wrong. I don't have time to go through it all because I'm going to die."

Haha! It's funny because she didn't die. At least one pithy, movie-ready remark came out of this ghastly affair:

In first-class Denise Lockie, an office-supply executive, remained braced in her seat until her seatmate, Mark Hood, an ex-Marine, nudged her.
"Am I in heaven?" she asked him.
"No, and I'm no angel," Hood, a deeply religious man, replied as he urged her to get moving.

Hollywood's calling, Sully. Get ready to play yourself in a movie. Mortal humans don't have that edge.
[Pic: AP]

Ad Age brings news that the strong-stomached Teutons who operate Pundo3000.com—who have dedicated their lives to photographing nasty packaged food products—have released a book, which would make a great gift that will warn any prospective travelers away from consuming food in Germany. Which we have no choice but to conclude is even grosser than normal American food.
Congratulations to you gross, gross people. [Pics via Pundo300]

Hello [Hipster Photo Submitter],

My name is Joe Mande and I'm the author of the tumblr blog Look at This Fucking Hipster. I am writing you because I think the amazing picture(s) you recently submitted for the blog might actually be perfect for the Look at This Fucking Hipster Book, which I am currently writing for St. Martin's Press.

If you did not take the submitted picture, but instead found the photograph somewhere online, please disregard this email. But if you did indeed take the picture yourself, and want that picture to be considered for the LATFH book, would you please be so kind as to fill out this photo release form and send it back to me? You'll be playing your part in a very important movement.

I appreciate it. Thanks so much!

- Joe Mande

And then a release form. Two separate people who had their photos rejected because they weren't the original photographers have sent the photos to us, the bottom of the barrel-shaped internet. Here they are (top photo, taken from a Facebook page; bottom photo, a live specimen in San Diego). Hipsters! We too would like a book deal if at all possible.

1. Be a Book Publicist—It worked for Melissa Broder, Sloane Crosley's publicist. Extend this chain ad infinitum. Crosley's book was called "I Was Told There'd Be Cake," and Broder's book will be called "When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother." The titles grow more impenetrably twee with each generation. Broder's publicist's future book will be called "Banana Karenina Sings the Blueberries, Or: The Indubitably Odd Presidency of Cherry True-Man."


2. Tumblr—Hey hey, Tumblr-of-the-minute Shit My Dad Says is the latest hot literary property! The hottest since This is Why You're Fat. Or Look at This Fucking Hipster. Even that Twitter book, which is almost like Tumblr or whatever, (internet buzzwords here). The point is: If you want a book off your internet crap, get it before the meme collapses.


3. Be a Celebrity—No matter how bad the economy gets, America will never tire of reading about celebrities and who they fuck. Which reminds us...


4. Fuck a Celebrity—Writing about Bernie Madoff's penis size will get you lots of press, but it might obviate the public's need to actually buy the book. Beware.


5. Latch Onto a Huge News Story and Ride It Straight to Book Hell—It must seem like common sense to hand out all those fat six-figure book contracts for books about The Historic Financial Crisis of 2008 or The Historic Election of 2008 while those things are happening. Then the book comes out a year later and nobody cares any more, plus **everything** has already been said. Be sure to get a good advance on a book deal like this. It's all you're gonna get.


6. Puppies—Quiz: You're a high-ranking editor at one of America's most prestigious news outlets. How will you get yourself a book deal. Answer: Write a column about your puppy! "Write a column about your puppy" is always a good answer to most of the aspiring author's daunting questions about the publishing industry. Motherfuckers just love puppies.

[Crosley/ Broder pic: Ron Hogan]

They are posers, literally, if you can believe such a thing! Instead of humorous shots of hipsters in the wild, LATFH is up on Craigslist soliciting any old prick who thinks they're a hipster to come pose for a photo shoot. The entire element of the hunt will be lost!

We remember back when that Tumblr wasn't all, tourists and shit.

Contributors to the book, edited by the former Valleywag editor and Gawker blogger (pictured), received a "congratulations" email today (below) from a HarperCollins marketer, which suggested they "flood Twitter with so many tweets about the book that no self-respecting Twitter addict will be able to resist buying a copy." Attached was a link to an "online buzz kit" consisting of various graphical badges (see image at left).

Bizarrely, this seems to be working (see image below), even though contributors get no royalties from the book, just a free copy. Flattery might have something to do with, as might ambition: Remember that Facebook status update that might turn into a movie? Surely the Twitter crowd is smart enough to draw some deals like that. Writes Douglas,

If even one [contributor] gets noticed enough to get their own book deal, I'll feel supremely lucky... Some of the people in the book are working on TV pilots, movies, books... mostly independently of their tweets. But the user @arjunbasu, who writes all these self-contained stories on Twitter, is looking to do that in particular in a book.

There you go: HarperCollins' campaign is about empowerment, not exploitation. Remember that as you gratefully flood Twitter with promotional messages. Also: It's always been this way.

(Top pic: Douglas, by Cameron Walters)

Sure, Laura Ling could have written her own book about her harrowing ordeal in a North Korean prison. But that would never make Oprah. Speakeasy reports:

Ms. Ling, together with her sister, Lisa Ling, a special correspondent for "The Oprah Winfrey Show," is offering a book that will examine the meaning of sisterhood and journalistic ideals. The issue of Laura Ling's captivity will be discussed, but in a larger context.

Fellow recently freed journo Euna Lee, who does not have a famous sister, can maybe write a book about dogs or something? People love dogs.

A quick reminder of what a Status Galley is, via Leon Neyfakh at the New York Observer:

Basically the term refers to an advance reader's copy of a highly anticipated book that hasn't been published yet. If you have one it means you're special: either a proud member of the exclusive club known as the publishing industry, a distinguished literary critic, a friend of the author's, or in some cases even an intern at a cultural magazine.

Today's book is Twitter Wit, edited by founding Valleywag editor and former Gawker writer Nick Douglas.

Concept: It's a book of Tweets. Okay, actually, it's the first authorized collection of Tweets, to be unleashed on the literary community by HarperCollins on August 25, moved up from its September 8th release date. It claims to be an "Authorized Collection of the Funniest Tweets of All Time," right there on the cover, but not the first, because New York Times columnist David Pouge's book of Tweets, while not "official," comes out on Wednesday, August 12 (which probably explains HarperCollins moving up the release). Douglas' book has a foreword by Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, and a swell introduction by Douglas, in which he explains that Twitter is "practically destined for...the witty one-liner." Concept Grade: C-. It's a book of Tweets, many of which were curated through a dedicated website. But there is longer-than-140-character insight from Biz Stone and the guy who put all of these together. So: that counts for something.

Numbers: Douglas' book will retail for $12.99, while Pogue's book will sell for $12.95 (SNAP), but you can buy both from Amazon for, like, $20, ha. Douglas made the deal back in February for a rumored mid five-figures that I'd heard was at $64K. Douglas assured me over email that it was "a good deal less" than that. He continued:

What I did get was very generous of Harper, especially since Twitter wasn't as completely media-dominant as it is now. It's been a very lucky summer for them, for me, and for the contributors who wrote this book over the course of two years.

So they should've tossed Douglas more money for being on the Zeitgeist bandwagon, no? There are, at last count, 634 Tweets in the book, so you're paying about two cents a Tweet. Assuming Douglas' "good deal less" was at least more than half of the $64K number, like, say, the $50K number Ryan Tate heard. If that were the case, Douglas would've received $78.86 per Tweet. Not bad. Even at $40K, Douglas would've received $63.09 per Tweet. Plus the introduction, of course. Numbers Grade: C-. Despite being a relative bargain per Tweet, the economy still sucks! Also, they're Tweets, you can get these for free. But Douglas sure cashed in, legwork on the intro (which again: is good!) aside. [Special shout-out to Drew Grant of ASSME for helping contribute to the counting effort.]

Industry Hype: It's a book of Tweets. At best, it's a stocking stuffer, and at worst, it's a cash-wrap buy shortly before it's a Bargain Bin buy. Nothing rests on the success of this book. For one thing, it's cheap to make. For another, agents and publishers will keep acquiring Book Deal Books because people believe in the internet but aren't sure what they believe. Industry Hype: D+.

Movie Potential: God willing, none. Movie Potential Grade: F+, with a "+" because Hollywood will try to make anything. Seriously.

Status Symbol: It's floppy and orange and blue. It's a nice conversation starter if you know people whose Tweets are in it, but if your Tweet is in it and you pull it out at a party, you're a dick. But this isn't the new Chabon, you know? Also, it comes out really soon probably because it needs to compete with a book just like it. Status Symbol Grade: D-.

First Sentence: In the foreword from Biz Stone: "It's easy to assign less weight to a pun than a poem - after all, laughter lightens the load." Oprah-ready shit, you know? B, because, dentists everywhere will buy the book for their office on this alone, much like those "Hang In There" kitten posters.

First Tweet: "What's the deal with deaf people? Like, HELLO?" - aedison. Grade: C

Final Tweet: "To do list for the day: hate self, love self, hate self, love self. Lunch. Hate self." - Michael Ian Black. Grade: B+

Scandal: Well, the ridiculous shit about the other Twitter book aside, there's another player involved in all of this: Microfame expert, blogger, and New Media consultant Rex Sorgatz. The way Rex told it in an email, Nick Douglas stole the book idea from him after he pitched it on Nick:

Yes, it was originally my idea. Yes, I pitched him on it, to see if he'd be interested in co-writing it with me. Yes, we worked lightly on a proposal together. Yes, six months later he was scoping his own book deal behind my back. And yes, this pissed me off at first. I eventually forgave him for what seems like an obvious indiscretion though. Because to be honest, I was probably never going to pursue it hard enough myself. I mean, it's a fucking book about Twitter.

Needless to say, this is the best part of the book.

Scandal grade: A, especially since Douglas repaid Rex with not one, but two Tweets! One of which was about having lunch (page 134).

The S.U.C.K.R. (Sorta Unqualified Consciously Knifing-worthy Review): Only sorta unqualified (as opposed to "fully") because I'm by no means a book critic, but come on: it's a book of Tweets. Douglas' introduction and Biz Stone's foreword are interesting enough, but only seven out of 158 pages. The book's content and structure are both problematic: there's no organizational scheme, as Tweets aren't grouped into categories, or even indexed. And a significant portion of the book's Tweets feel culled from a very specific list of people, many of whom are New York Media/Tech Types or celebrities (or, Twitter Celebrities, I guess). Take a look at this list:

Self-Proclaimed Experts:
Jason Kottke
Anil Dash
Rex Sorgatz (Twice)

Political/Media Analyistas:
Rachel Sklar
Ana Marie Cox (Twice)

The Staff of Tumblr:
Jacob Bijani (Twice)
Christopher Price
Meaghan O'Connell

Valleywag Alumni:
Melissa Gira Grant
Jackson West

Gawker Staff, Past and Present:
Scott Kidder
Choire Sicha

TechGuys:
Kevin Rose (Digg founder, A Bunch Of Times)
Dennis Crowley (Foursquare)

Defamer Alumni:
Mark Lisanti
Molly McAleer

The New Yorker:
Sasha Frere-Jones
Susan Orlean

Celebrities
Ashton Kutcher
John Hodgman
Diablo Cody
Jimmy Fallon
Michael Ian Black (Stella)
David Wain (Stella)
Michael Showalter (Stella)
ScottAukerman (Mr. Show Writer)
Rainn Wilson (The Office)
Aziz Ansari (Human Giant)
Paul Scheer (Human Giant)
Jake and Amir (College Humor)
Bill Corbett (Mystery Sciene Theater guy)
Joel McHale (E!'s The Soup)
Paula Poundstone
Judah Friedlander (30 Rock)
Felicia Day (Joss Whedon go-to actress)
Andy Borowitz (Creator of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)
Penn Jilette (Penn and Teller)

Three things about that list: (1) the first half are the same repetitive voices heard throughout the New York Media and Tech scene's inane echo chamber, (2) the second half are your average Celebrity-Follow list, and (3) you can get all of these Tweets for free, right there, right above this paragraph. Click! Try it! Now, it'd be unfair to say that this is the majority of the book, or an in-depth analysis, but don't you think Douglas dipped into an otherwise pedestrian list? Finally, the omission of post-modern philosopher, Shaquille YEAH HOW MY ASS TASTE O'Neal is unforgivable. S.U.C.K.R. Grade: D+.

Final Status Galley Grade: One one hand, this was a seriously labor-intensive undertaking. If I had to read this many Tweets, I'd give in to trepanation. On the other, you can get the material in the book for free, they're 140-character insights, many of which people would pay not to exist, it doesn't have an index, it was maybe someone else's idea, there's no Shaq, there's another book just like it, and, uh, it's a book of Tweets.

Gawker Status Galley Book Club grade: D.

Do you have a status galley you'd like to review, or send us to review? Shoot us an email here.

Carrie California's Still Standing (oh what a strong and courageous title!), about the whirlwind of unfairness that erupted after she told a bunch of beauty pageant people that they shouldn't be able to get married, will drop in November of this year. Which means this little lady has a lot of thinkin' and typin' to do in just four short months. (Good thing she won't actually write it.)

Regnery is home to a whole host of notable, non-loonybird authors. Authors like Newt Gingrich, Laura Ingraham, teen sex scaremonger Meg Meeker (not a big fan of the gays herself), and Ollie North.

So, good news for everyone, really! But mostly a victory for Miss Prejean, whose First Amendment rights were violated because she said something distasteful and then she was criticized for it. Poor thing deserves this success, really.

The first installment in the six-book series is called I Am Number Four, and it was being shopped around with pseudonyms but now everyone has found out who was behind it. Oprah's worst enemy, James Frey (if that is his real name!).

The Times gives the following synopsis:

The story is about a group of nine children from a planet called Lorien who have been attacked by a hostile race from another planet. The nine children and their guardians evacuate to earth, where three are killed. The protagonist, a Lorien boy named John Smith, hides in Paradise, Ohio, as a human and tries to evade his predators.

Reached in Paris, Frey risked his promotion to Gawker special correspondent by playing coy with us: "I can neither confirm nor deny that I had anything to do with that book."

Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg are involved in the movie optioning, and the old Bay boy might even direct! So good for Mr. Frey. From career embarrassment with A Million Little Pieces, to hard-working beer-fetching Gawker HQ lackey, to snappy teen sci-fi writer with a movie deal.

See why you should let us work you to death and never pay you? Eventually, Steven Spielberg will make sure you get yours. Meanwhile, we're still here... Hm.

He's Joe Mande, a "comedian/ writer" who graduated from Emerson College, has a show at Upright Citizens Brigade theater, appears on Best Week Ever once in a while, and was named the "Best New Comedian" this year by Time Out New York. He doesn't look like I imagined, which is okay! Max Silvestri interviewed him for us last month.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.There have been many Tumblr-to-book deals, including ones from current or former Gawker employees Doree Shafrir, Richard Blakeley, and Nick Douglas, but as brilliant as those may be, none of them include pictures of people like this, and therefore LATFH The Book (due out next spring!) may well be the awesomest of all.

We've emailed Joe Mande and we'll let you know when we hear whatever he has to say about all this.
[PW via NYO]

Agents from Beverly Hills' United Talent Agency and literary shop Fletcher & Co. are shopping a book and film deal built around a Facebook update from Lisa Hamilton Day (pictured), a book exec at Dreamworks. Here it is verbatim, as published in an update last week:

"Lisa Hamilton Day's Pomeranian raided Chinese takeout bag overnight, opened and ate a fortune cookie. Her fortune: You have strong spiritual powers, and you should develop them."

This could become "a tween series about Charlotte, the Pomeranian, who uses her newfound superpowers to save her owner's home after said owner loses her job," per Publisher's Weekly. Laugh all you want, but Beverly Hills Chihuahua grossed $145 million.

[Publishers Weekly]

(Pic via)

Back in 1983, Dick and his future-cyborg-lesbian wife Lynne collaborated on a book called Kings of the Hill, about famous congressmen. The book was mostly about how famous congressmen all looked really funny, and some of them were cripples. Jonathan Curiel read it.

"Plumer observed that Clay was especially favored by the ladies. It was not because he was particularly handsome. Except for an unusually large mouth (which he joked was so constructed that he could never learn to spit), he was rather plain featured."
[...]
Congressman Samuel Taggart is not just a Federalist but a "corpulent Federalist." Secretary of War Peter Buell Porter is not just a lawyer but "a rotund lawyer." Congressman Sam Rayburn is "a short, bald-headed man (who) . . . didn't look like a person of consequence." Senator John Randolph is "wrinkled and sallow-skinned (and) appeared twice his age." And Congressman Thaddeus Stevens is "a crippled man in a brown wig." Cheney uses the word "cripple" again and again (also "handicapped" and "old") to describe the anti-slavery maverick.

You can buy a copy of book—original printing or its 1996 paperback edition—for one cent! So, extrapolating from that, Dick Cheney will earn back his advance once he sells 200,000,000 copies. Let's hope his book is about teenage vampires fighting the Illuminati!

The killjoys of the Illinois State Senate are passing some terrible bill that wouldn't allow elected officials "convicted" of "misconduct" from cashing in on their fame.

If the governor is convicted, he must "forfeit any monetary rights derived from any book, movie, television, radio program, or Internet depiction or detailing of the crime for which he or she was convicted."

Uh but wait, Patti "That Fucking Cubs Shit" Blagojevich is exempt from the bill, so she totally gets to go be on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, even though she is not a "celebrity," she is just the crazy, cursey wife of Rod Blagojevich. What the hell, Illinois.