Publishing Director They Told Me I Couldn't Talk, So I'm Telling Everything

This book fits in with Vintage's list of edgy titles, like Getting Away with It: the Inside Story of Loaded and Fifty Shades of Grey. In fact, just like that book came from the online world of fan-fiction, so too has this book come from the online world. Or in the same way that Tucker Max posted his stories online, this author has collected over 15,000 followers on his blog page, where he posts stories about Hollywood insiders, never naming names but always saying just enough so that you're pretty sure who he's talking about. And this is stuff only an insider would have access to: things like who passed out where, who went home with whom -- the things the paparazzi don't have access to -- the what goes on the other side of the gates type of action: shouting matches, orgies, ennui, suicides, anecdotes, uplifting moments…it's as though he's a fly on the wall in the world of celebrity -- except he's generally pissed off about everything he sees and wants everyone to know how shallow and empty it all is.

Blurb on back:

This book is in the tradition of the nittiest, grittiest tell-alls of all-time. It is I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell meets L.A. Noir meets Bret Easton Ellis meets Wiseguy meets Fifty Shades of Grey. Is it true? Is it not true? It says it's true -- but there's no way to verify it, because people aren't talking. This could be the book that shines a light on a dark spot in Hollywood -- that line at the door where cameras and phones are turned off, non-disclosures are signed and nothing gets out. Everybody who's not there wants to know what goes on. So who knows? Apparently this "guy" in L.A. who's seen it all. It reads like a pulp fiction -- but it insists it's true, and that is what is so intriguing. Reading it, you have the feeling that this all must be true, and you spend the rest of the night trying to guess who is being ratted out.

Link to Vintage Non-fiction current catalogue:

http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/browse/non-fiction

This book could very easily fit in with Vintage's current catalogue. The author already comes with a built-in following (web-based, blogosphere) and has the "insider" credentials to garner attraction from major reviewers. The anonymity of his authorship allows us to "pitch" the book in much the same way that Primary Colors was sold to audiences. Books by "Anonymous" have a quality that leaps at readers and says, "Here is information that is almost too dangerous for me to tell!" The book is centered on Hollywood's elite but also touches on visiting elite (leaders of countries, out of town movers and shakers).

Competitors:

Competition in this non-fiction genre is not great. There are a lot of "insider" tell-all books. David Stein (aka David Cole) just came "out of hiding" and released his biography Republican Party Animal, which tells of what he has been up to as a Hollywood conservative, rubbing elbows with Jon Voigt and Gary Senise -- but the book's audience is mostly made up of Cole's followers, who admired him for his revisionist views.

Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars by Scotty Bowers (published by Grove Press) is a book that has a lot of information regarding the sex lives of major Hollywood stars and starlets of the Golden Days, but it is incredibly repetitive and almost fetishistic. There is no substance to these people or to the stories.

LA Noir by John Buntin (published by Three Rivers Press) is a great example of an excellent historical book. It offers a glimpse into the old L.A. The book I'm proposing offers a glimpse into the new L.A. -- but does so in a much different manner. The author is like the guy at the bar who teases you with information

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max (Citadel Press) describes the strange, party lifestyle of the author in humorous anecdotes, but the perspective is self-indulgent and purposefully bawdy.

Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern (IT Books) is another example of the tell-all except in this book, Halpern secretly admires his dad and in the book I'm suggesting the author cannot stand these people and it shows.

Each of these is sort of close, but not quite. This book flirts with revelation but never quite discloses anything the way that Scotty Bowers or Buntin or Max do. Each of them has names, dates, places. This author divulges nothing, only descriptions and leaves up to the read to do his own investigation....

He is like an informant who won't give all the details but does at least put the investigator on the right trail. It hints at identities but doesn't lay it all out there in the way that a Postcards from the Edge sort of biography does. This guy wants to blab, but he also wants to keep his dayjob. The field day that reviewers could have with this might be an event in and of itself.
Scheduling

Date of Publication: Fall 2015, Holiday travel book, Holiday movie season in full swing, people are talking about movies, about celebs, seeing families

Price: $15 -- affordable, neither too steep nor too cheap. This price puts it in the same ball park as Tucker Max's or Scotty Bower's book or Justin Halpern's book. Max's has gone on to sell over a million copies worldwide. Upon initial publication,

Format: Print and eBook

Production Values: Standard, ink, no photos or illustrations, no gloss; for eBook, the standard metadata

Author: Anonymous, marketed to 18-35, readership male/female

Target audience: men, women, 18-35, single/married

This book has the potential to score with readers of eBooks. eBooks allow readers to read without anyone else knowing what they are looking at. Just as a solid portion of Fifty Shades sales were to eBook readers, who could read without fear of being "outed," so the same may go with this book, if popularity and sales make it widely known.

Contents:

Chapter 1: A Day in the Life of a Beverly Hills Mansion

Chapter 2: A Day in the Life of a Hollywood Slum

Chapter 3: They All Sleep Their Way to the Top

Chapter 4: What to Do with the Body

Chapter 5: A Famous Blonde, A Famous Brunette, A Famous Leading Man, A Famous Bar, and a Not-So-Famous Incident

Chapter 6: Deny Everything

Chapter 7: What to Do When They Have You on Camera

Chapter 8: Blackmail

Chapter 9: Naked Time

Chapter 10: Nobody Told Me Nothin'

Chapter 11: Deathlist?

Chapter 12: Celebrity Bowl: A Boxer, A Quarterback, 10 Rappers, and an All-Night, Drug-Induced, Alcohol-Fueled Jam Session

Chapter 13: Cops

Chapter 14: Street Racing

Chapter 15: More Cops

Chapter 16: Neighbors and Papz, Papz and Neighbors

Chapter 17: More Bodies

Chapter 18: Everyone Hates You

Chapter 19: Moms Calling

Chapter 20: Island Getaway

Excerpt: From the Beginning

The noir world never really died in L.A. Sure it got glitzed over and glammed up and a TMZ came to town and every pretty young thing (boy or girl, straight or bi) that walked down the road was in some piece of crap and had some papz following with a camera -- but that's daytime. That's soap stuff. True noir is what happens at night. I can tell you about that. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not blabbing because I want attention. I'm blabbing because they told me not to. And nobody tells me what to do.

My name is Monsieur T. Actually that's not my real name, but you don't need to know it. Just for the record, you won't find anyone's real name in here. But if you're sharp and do some digging, you'll figure it out. Like I said, I'm not out to screw anybody over. I'm just tired of all the "Hey, you, keep quiet or else!" kinda stuff they're always saying around here. I want to know what "or else" is. I hope they show me -- and fast -- 'cause I'm bored as hell.

Me -- I've known everybody. Anyone who's stepped foot in this town, they've all come to me in the end. Not that I'm a bigshot or anything -- I'm just that guy. You know, there's always that guy who does that thing that nobody else seems to be able to do or want to do or…well…maybe I should have gone to law school like my mother said.

Final Pitch

It is a work of non-fiction that reads like fiction, because you're never really sure who the narrator (who remains anonymous) is talking about. But the action is not limited to actors and actresses: politicians, the underworld, the business world, FBI, drug dealers, drug makers, foreign diplomats. The action is bigger than L.A.L.A. is like the stomping grounds for the world's elite. The fact that the author wishes to remain anonymous makes the book even more enticing. Who wants to write a book but not bask in the glory of its publication? Someone who has a story to tell and doesn't want to have to face the consequences, if there…