Author Pays People To Read Her Book In Public And Laugh. I’m Laughing Free Of Charge.

Guess what industry I’m thinking of:

It  begins with the letter ‘P’. It’s full of narcissism, desperation and people getting paid by the hour for degrading themselves on camera.

No, not porn, you perv! Almost as fun, though. I’m thinking of the publishing industry. Here’s why:

Jennifer Belle writes chick-lit. Or “women’s fiction”. Or something. I’d never heard of her until I read a loltastic article on how she paid a bunch of actors eight bucks an hour to read her book in public and laugh loudly. There’s even video documentation: http://publishingperspectives.com/?p=18559

WARNING: that video is the creepiest thing I have seen all year. It sort of reminds me of this educational film I once saw about what it’s like to be a paranoid schizophrenic (everyone’s crazy and dangerous and laughing manically at something that isn’t funny: your mental illness / chick-lit.).

Oh, but don’t worry. Jennifer Belle’s reasoning for the stunt is completely sane and entirely understandable:

“Many years ago, I read an article about professional funeral wailers in China. In China, and in many countries, when a loved one died, you hired people to sit in the back and cry—sob, weep, bellow, really, really grieve the way only a stranger or someone who is being paid can—or it just wasn’t considered a good funeral. And it didn’t mean you weren’t sad yourself, it was just for reinforcement. So for years I joked with my writer friends that one day, if I got desperate enough, I would hire people to read my book on the subway and laugh.”

So. I suppose this is the point in time in which Jennifer Belle became “desperate enough”. Excellent selling point for the new novel.

Another nugget of gold: “There is no bigger thrill for a writer than seeing someone you don’t know reading your book.”

Um. Is it really the same when you’ve PAID them to do so? Sounds to me like… literature prostitutes. Really naughty ones. As often happens with traditional prostitutes, Jennifer’s actresses were paid to actively use their mouths. And as with traditional prostitutes, no one is fooling themselves into believing the transaction would have occurred without a cash payment. Well. Maybe except for Jennifer Belle.

Belle apparently decided to seize the day and launch her own, special brand of China’s tackiest custom after her new chick-lit novel, The Seven Year Bitch, got extremely little publicity. Something Belle failed to, you know, take as a sign or something. Turns out, “Carpe Diem” is about the worst piece of advice you could give certain people. Damn you and your pop culture influence, Dead Poets Society!

I checked this book out on Amazon. Hilariously enough, the number of people Belle paid to read her book in public exceeds the number of people who reviewed the book by about 75%. What makes this even funnier is that only two of the reviews are actually favorable. Still: what makes this story the friggin’ highlight of my morning is that the only really enthusiastic review of the bunch contains this sentence: “[This book] will make you smile, chuckle and realize you’re not alone and what ever choice you make embrace them and have fun.” I never knew Harold Bloom did Amazon reviews.

Belle offered a brilliant parting insight regarding the world of publishing. Here’s her advice: “You want to show the publisher that you’re willing to prostitute yourself in any manner possible, all while trying to be taken seriously”.  Words to live by. So -  keep faith, aspiring chick-lit authors and San Fernando Valley hopefuls. This post is for you, Montana Fishburne.

For some eerie reason, every person who commented on the aforementioned article by Belle were like, “This is the best idea since Penicillin – I think I’ll try this with MY self-published novel about a woman who is just like me, except everyone loves her and awesome things happen to her”.   Then again – those people might just be paid actresses for all I know.

Thanks for making me question reality, Jennifer Belle. Excuse me while I go pay someone to publicly vomit on a copy of The Notebook.