DR. LAURA
W_I_L_L__H_E_C_T_O_R__Y_O_U__N_O_W
Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives By Dr. Laura Schlessinger
Cliff Street Books/HarperCollins, 320 pages PLUS:
ILLUSTRATION |
Can talk radio's tough-talking moralist sell self-help to men?
Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the radio talk-show host and bestselling author, kicks off her third book, "Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives," with a story from a listener who says, "An old Oregon rancher once told me, 'There are three types of men in the world. One type learns from books. One type learns from observations. And one type just has to urinate on the electric fence himself.'" With her new book, Schlessinger is betting that there are plenty of the first type of man out there, but she's betting against long-standing book industry wisdom about who buys relationship self-help books. If she's wrong, she (and HarperCollins, her publisher) may wind up feeling as shaken as the third type. Schlessinger represents a new breed of author, what publishing industry marketing executives call a "franchise." John Gray ("Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus") personifies the franchise author. With seven books and dozens of cassette tapes, video tapes, CD-ROMs, seminars, even a new cruise program based on his Mars/Venus concept, the mountains of cash Gray rakes in dwarf the molehill takings of any "serious" writer, even a bestselling author like John Berendt ("Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"). Self-help books like Schlessinger's and Gray's (and, to a lesser degree, Jack Canfield's "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series) are the blazing stars in a market that feels like it's a universe apart from the rest of the beleaguered publishing industry. One thing publishers have always believed, though, is that all the inhabitants of that universe are "Venusians." That belief, it turns out, is based on very little direct observation. While the most market-savvy publishers may be able to gauge how many copies of which book have sold in which parts of the country, nobody really knows who's buying them. Probably the people who shelled out 20 bucks for "Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them" and "Women Who Love Too Much" -- bestsellers in the 1980s -- were female, but what about less gender-specific franchises, like Leo Buscaglia's paeans to love and John Bradshaw's ministrations to the inner child? Who bought those? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > NEXT PAGE | Why guys hate self-help books |
