In my morning routine of checking email, I found a message offering me a coupon to an online bookstore, so ever the procrastinator, I decided to check out what the store had (instead of really getting to work). The coupon wasn't that great, but that's not what I'm bitter about....it was the book titles that were featured on the front page of the online store.
Two of the three books were celebrity memoirs, one for Ozzy Osborne and one for Jenny Sanford. Ozzy - ok, he's been around and lived some life - maybe he's got something interesting enough to put in a book. The one that really got me, though, was this Jenny Sanford memoir (Staying True, I think was its name).
Honestly, my first reaction was, "Who's Jenny Sanford?" Then the fog lifted from my morning brain, and I remembered she is the wife of the governor of South Carolina, the governor who had an affair with a woman from Argentina and disappeared for a few days, supposedly out hiking the Appalachian trail (uh-huh).
Once I remembered that, that's when the bitterness set in. How long ago was the entire Sanford scandal? Last summer? Six months ago? And the woman already has a published book for sale? Heck, in six months, I can't even get a response to my query from an agent or publisher as to whether they might like to look at my full manuscript! As a writer, this makes me even more convinced that all the big publishing houses care about is making a quick buck.
As a reader, I'm dismayed. The Sanford affair was all over talk TV. What is going to be in this book that hasn't already been said? More tawdry details? Raw emotion? Moralizing about the sanctity of marriage? Fine. Maybe that's what some readers want. I'm sure someone will buy the book. But I find myself wondering if the content of this book wouldn't have worked equally well as the feature story in some women's magazine.
Color me disgusted.
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