celebrity authors

Actors Anonymous by James Franco; MSNBC Slams Fox Ratings

Actors Anonymous by James Franco


James Franco’s new novel is being released on October 15th and I thought I would post about it because I’ve read his work before and it’s surprisingly excellent. I’ve read many non-fic books by those in the entertainment industry and they aren’t always great…or anything like they were promoted to be. In Franco’s case I haven’t been disappointed. But more than that, I never feel as if I’ve been ripped off as a reader.

I also love something he did on Amazon (or his publisher did), where he created a video about the book readers can view beneath the book cover in the top left hand corner of the page. I’m actually embarrassed to admit that with over 150 published novels out I never knew Amazon did this. Definitely something I’m going to be looking into for the future with my releases. In fact, it’s something all authors might want to check out.

Here’s the book description, below. And here’s the Amazon link. The novel can be pre-ordered, too. And the digital book is priced at $5.99, which I find is a comfortable price point for any new release. I’ll post a review in upcoming weeks.

The actors in James Franco’s brilliant debut novel include a McDonald’s drive-thru operator who spends his shift trying on accents; an ex-child star recalling a massive beachside bacchanal; hospital volunteers and Midwestern transplants; a vampire flick starlet who discovers a cryptic book written by a famous actor gone AWOL; and the ghost of River Phoenix. Then there’s Franco himself, who prowls backstage, peering out between the lines—before taking the stage with fascinating meditations on his art, along with nightmarish tales of excess. “Hollywood has always been a private club,” he writes. “I open the gates. I say welcome. I say, Look inside.”
Told in a dizzying array of styles—from lyric essays and disarming testimonials to hilariously rambling text messages and ghostly footnotes—and loosely modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Actors Anonymous is an intense, wild ride into the dark heart of celebrity.

MSNBC Slams Fox Ratings
 
This piece is way out of character for me to post here, however, with all the unfounded accusations flying around the Internet about authors allegedly paying for book reviews to spike sales, and so many articles about Internet subterfuge in publishing, I thought it was amusing to see the same accusations being made by an executive in TV news journalism. In this case, Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC, thinks there’s something not right about the high ratings Fox news is getting.
 
“Tuesday — you guys should be doing some investigations; I have never seen it in all my years of cable — same overnight, same everything. And they doubled their ratings in a day? It is impossible.” Griffin continued, “I have never seen it. They did election-night numbers in the demo Tuesday.”

The Nielsen numbers Griffin refers to include MSNBC beating Fox News on Monday in the adults 25-54 demographic at 7 p.m. and tying Fox News at 10 p.m.

At 9 p.m. on Monday, MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show beat Fox News’ new The Kelly File, hosted by Megyn Kelly, by a slim 10,000 viewers in the key demo.

Who knows? But I can’t help wondering if Mr. Griffin is really in touch with the TV viewing audience, and if he’s actually paying attention to what’s been going on in America for the past six years. In other words, if you market your audience to people who spend more time texting and steaming on the Internet, instead of the people sitting at home in their family rooms trying to figure out how this new “affordable” health care system is either going to help them or screw them over, than you deserve what you get…especially if you’re drawing the kind of salary I’m sure Mr. Griffin is drawing.

Maybe it’s time to stop crying foul and figure out why you’re not getting the ratings.