Lindsay Lohan Tv Tome

You've lost 87 pounds, kicked the cocaine habit and want to sell that tell-all first book.

You might want to consider landing a talk show first.

Experts say publishers are far more likely to snatch up your hot story if you're already famous, have a new gig on cable TV or are a hot commodity on the workshop circuit.

"It's frustrating," said Ana Hays, with the Ebling & Hays literary agency in Santa Monica, Calif. "In the past, writers could just write a book and turn it over to a publisher. Now you need to have an audience out there before they'll consider you."

"(Publishers) want to see you on the Food Network or on Home and Garden TV," said Colleen Mohyde, a partner with the Doe Coover Agency in Winchester. "They want a tie-in to TV shows that increases the visibility of a book."

And unless you're Lindsay Lohan, editors are likely to respond to your proposal for a tome about your tumultuous childhood with a yawn.

"Memoir tended to be more interesting earlier," said Neil Nyren, editor in chief and publisher at G.P. Putnam in New York. "A slew of memoirs by nonfamous people dealing with terrible things in their lives were published. People got a little over-memoired."

That doesn't apply, of course, if you're famous.

Celebrity biography tomes by Jane Fonda, Goldie Hawn and Brooke Shields also have been selling like hotcakes, said Nyren.

Other juicy book topics today are weight loss and spiritual growth, said Hays.

And cooking and craft books are also drawing interest from publishers.

"Crafts has been huge in the past few years," said Mohyde. "There has been an explosion of knitting books."

Less interesting are true crime stories, business how-to books and parenting tomes.

These books have suffered from the explosion of television news programs and the fact that people can get a lot of how-to information online.

"True crime used to be a big genre," said Mohyde. "But with 24- hour news, people follow big cases every night. By the time the book comes out, they're already onto the next thing."

This may not be the year to try to publish a book of your exotic travel photography either.

Those glossy, colorful photography and gardening books for the coffee table are also out.

"The recession of the past few years has hit illustrated books hard," said Mohyde. "There's been a real decline in the expensive, full-color coffee-table books."

So what's an aspiring writer to do?

"Find something that needs to be written - something that hasn't been done over and over again," said Nyren. "And write it really well."

"Good stories and good storytelling is timely and timeless," said Mohyde. "At the end of the day, people want to plop on the sofa with a good story well told. That doesn't change."

Copyright 2005
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

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