Friday, November 14, 2008

Joe the Plumber Wants You to Know that He Could Have Gone with a Huge Publisher but Chose Not To


(Reuters, Brian Snyder, October 30, 2008)

Like a child who falls down in the playground and then claims, "I meant to do that," Joe the plumber says that, oh sure, he could have gotten a huge payday from, say, Regnery Publishing or Random House, but instead chose to go with a tiny publisher with no ad budget just because he's, you know, keepin' it real:

"Everyone came at me to write a book. They had dollar signs in their eyes. '101 Things Joe the Plumber Knows' or some stupid s--- like that. Excuse me, I am sorry," he said. "You know I will get behind something solid, but I won't get behind fluff. I won't cash in, and when people do read the book they will figure out that I didn't cash in. At least I hope they figure that out."

The book, called "Joe the Plumber -- Fighting for the American Dream," is to be released by a group called PearlGate Publishing and other small publishing houses.

"I am not going to a conglomerate that way we actually can get the economy jump started. Like there is five publishing companies in Michigan. There's a couple down in Texas. They are small ones that can handle like 10 or 15,000 copies. I can go to a big one that could handle a million or two. But they don't need the help. They are already rich. So that's spreading the wealth to me," he said.


Righto! This is the guy who jumped at a recording contract and became more of an instant media whore than even Sarah Palin implying that he turned down offers from, you know, Knopf, McGraw-Hill, whatever, and instead chose PearlGate Publishing, a nothing company whose only other title is written by his ghost writer, the guy who I assume is also the owner*. Sounds totally believable to me! Who needs wheelbarrows full of money?

How soon before we hear that Joe is "developing a reality TV show"? Or selling his underwear on eBay? Joe the plumber: the second stupidest thing produced by the McCain campaign.

*This took about two seconds to confirm: the Go Daddy lookup shows that the registrant for PearlGate's web site is Tom Tabback, the above-mentioned ghost writer. Vanity publishing at its finest! Oh, Andrews McMeel must be kicking themselves right now!

UPDATE: Let's contrast this with Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com:

Which of Penguin's imprint will publish Mr. Silver has not yet been determined, however, as there are at least three within the company that are jockeying for the privilege. The pricetag, we hear, is above $600,000 but below $1 million—a healthy sum even though it's paying for two books rather than just one. Update, 5:00 p.m.: New intelligence says Mr. Silver's advance is in the neighborhood of $700,000, give or take a few grand.

Now Mr. Silver just has to choose which imprint he likes best, a process that is unlikely to be resolved before next week.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

INTEGRITEH. He haz it.

Matthew Hubbard said...

Joe didn't go with Regnery? What was he thinking? I guess artistic freedom doesn't have a price tag.

I was closer to predicting the final electoral tally than Nate Silver was, but no book deal for Matty Boy! He had the election odds at about 97% for Obama, when actually McCain was no better than a 1,200 to 1 longshot at any time from Saturday before the election to Tuesday night, and sometimes as bad as 20,000 to 1. This one was really, really, really not close.

Oh, bitter regret!

Anonymous said...

Proposed book title:
"Delusions of Adequacy"

Anonymous said...

Princess:

I spent all my working years in the book biz, and I don't know that I've ever before seen Regnery even implicitly compared to Random House. But I guess Joe is really a game-changer.

Lulu Maude said...

Poor Joe--he thought that McCain's crew sat at his feet. They really laid it on thick, and now they're gone.

See you at the remainder table.

Peteykins said...

Anonymous, compared to the vanity "publisher" he went with, Regnery pretty much is Random House.

Flying Spaghetti Monster said...

I hope the book is full of mind numbing sentences like this one from the synopsis of Tabback's novel "His life and loved ones are all lost to him, but a specter from the past awakens him to an identity more than 3200 years ago."

THE EVIL SLUT CLIQUE said...

As far as the reality show goes - I saw JtheP on Extra or one of those shows mentioning that he's "unlucky in love" and "has no game" and just can't find the right girl. So expect Vh1 to start casting Plumber of Love any day now. Although that would kill my dream of him marrying Megan McCain and having her buy him a congressional seat so that he can run for president in 8 years.

Fran said...

Safe to say Joe-Sam-the -unlicensed-plumber is full of shit, and likely his book will be too.

Truth be known, I think McCain will never live down the Joe-the-plumber debate/campaign snafu.

The freaking economy is up in flames & he yammered on about Joe.

Between Blinky Winky Palin & joe, McCain won his retirement.

Now he'll have time to count all those houses & cars.

Diane Griffin said...

Of the what? Ten? Republican hopefuls traipsing around Iowa & New Hampshire, McCain was the best of them. Imagine, if you will, what a Giuliani campaign would have looked like post-primary, or Brownback, or Tancredo or...

I echo Fran's sentiments above, adding that if the McCain Campaign was the best they could do, Oh, yeah, the Republican Party as we knew it is over.

And good freakin' riddance!

Peteykins said...

I can totally imagine what a Giuliani campaign would have been like: TERROR! TERROR! THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU! TERROR! 911!

Karen Zipdrive said...

Joe the Plumber should skip book arthuring and stay with his cuntry music career.
Monster truck rallies need an opening act.

Matthew Hubbard said...

OMG!!! I went to the website and Joe's book will be released on December 1st! I mean, the one that is two weeks from now! Talk about striking when the iron is hot, or at least lukewarm.

Now I can see why he didn't go with those hoity toity publishers. They require books to be edited!

TRex said...

If I can steal it, I'll read it. Ok, probably I won't read it, but I'll say I did!

Cody said...

Well, duh. If he'd gone with a BIG publisher he might have made a whole lot more money, and then he'd maybe make more than $250,000 this year and when tax time came around next April he'd have to have it redistributed, and that sounds like socialism. So it's just easier this way. Smart plumber! Keep it simple, Joe!