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Osama bin Laden Does a Book Blurb
From: www.writerswrite.com

" Now there's a book blurb that most authors really would not want to have: in his recent videotape, terrorist Osama bin Laden endorsed William Blum's Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower. Before the plug, the book ranked 209,000 on Amazon.com, but after the mention, the book sales soared to #30 as of today.

Bin Laden said al Qaeda group was preparing more attacks in the United States but also told Americans, "It is useful for you to read the book 'The Rogue State.'"

"I was quite surprised and even shocked and amused when I found out what he'd said," Blum said on Friday in an interview with Reuters Television in his Washington apartment. "I was glad. I knew it would help the book's sales and I was not bothered by who it was coming from. "If he shares with me a deep dislike for the certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy, then I'm not going to spurn any endorsement of the book by him. I think it's good that he shares those views and I'm not turned off by that."

Blum said some friends and family members were afraid the bin Laden endorsement might endanger him but he said there had been no threats and he was not concerned.

With Junior, an audaciously empty mishmash of poems, letters, comics, etc., former child star Culkin (of Home Alone fame) has managed to lower the already low bar set for celebrity fiction.

Culkin's debut novel, to be published on March 15 by Miramax Books, kicks off with a five-question pop quiz meant to weed out any readers not quite up to snuff. Those who fail the quiz, Culkin writes, will not be allowed to go on. Reader, if you know what?s good for you, you will fail the quiz.

The book is essentially comprised of a couple hundred pages of semi-coherent diary entries coupled with a handful of scrawled drawings. The story, insofar as one exists, concerns a child star named Monkey-Monkey Boy and a guy, Junior, with no end of father issues. (People magazine readers will recognize autobiographical elements.)

*****

Filled with jokes lacking wit, introspection devoid of insight, poetry made of nothing, this is a work frustratingly short on substance. Makes Ethan Hawke read like Philip Roth.

Author Stephen King hates cellphones and won't use them. "They're 21st-century slave bracelets," he said in an interview from his home in Florida late last week. But tomorrow, Mr. King's marketing team plans to send text messages on his behalf -- to 100,000 cellphone users. On Jan. 24, the Scribner imprint is publishing Mr. King's new novel, "Cell," about apocalyptic havoc wreaked by cellphones. To promote the dark tale, Scribner has devised an elaborate Web- and cellphone-based marketing campaign.

Scribner will give Mr. King's fans the opportunity to buy ring tones of his voice. Selling ring tones is a popular avenue for making money in the music industry. It hasn't previously been tried in the book business because the idea of a novelist's voice droning from your mobile wouldn't seem to have much mainstream appeal. Mr. King, however, is one of the few writers with enough of a following to give him a shot at making it a viable enterprise.

*****

"Cell" tells the story of a mysterious pulse, sent to every operating cellphone, that incites many who hear it to go on a murderous rampage. A small percentage of the world's population remains unaltered -- they call themselves "normies" -- but their future is very much in doubt.

*****

The veteran horror writer says he got the idea for his new novel while watching a beautifully dressed woman standing outside a New York hotel, talking on her cellphone. What would happen, he wondered, if she suddenly received a message telling her to kill people? "I cruise the landscape, looking for things that would make people nervous," he says.

McMurtry thanked his constant companion during the lonely process of writing. "Most heartfelt, I thank my typewriter. My typewriter is a Hermes 3000, surely one of the noblest instruments of European genius," McMurtry said.

The 25-year-old former child star has written his first book, Junior, a semi-fictional, semi-autobiographical collection of journal-like entries, drawings, letters and poems - often about a troubled father-son relationship.

In one letter to "Father" he writes: "You taught me how I never want to be with my children . . . . You taught me about anger and rage." In another, his character simply repeats an obscene word over and over and over in a letter to his father.

But "Dad" also tops his list of "Things That Are Important." Also on the list? "Solar panels. Bananas. Carpenters." In real life Culkin, who shot to fame in 1990's Home Alone, has not spoken to his father, Kit Culkin, 61 (left), since a custody dispute in 1997.

AOL, which already has one of the largest video libraries on the Internet, is in discussions with broadcast and cable networks about allowing their content on its site, says Kevin Conroy, AOL's executive in charge of video strategy. He wouldn't elaborate further. AOL will allow downloads to personal computers and would like to enable people to use its service to interact with Apple Computer's popular iTunes site if Apple will permit it, he says.

Pricing details for the service are still being worked out and Conroy wouldn't divulge the names of any of the companies that are in discussions with AOL. He said content providers won't limit their Web distribution to AOL.