Books, Publications always about the same personalities

[sepiatone]

why are there always books written about the same people(silent, sound, public figures) while ignoring forgotten or deserving personalities from the past? Just go to your public or college library and a whole shelf is devoted to Marilyn Monroe, Jack Kennedy(ok he was a President), Charles Chaplin, Elvis Presley etc.

But many a silent or stage star who did silents are left out totally forgotten. Until Bob Fells wrote a biography of George Arliss the only work on Arliss was his own autobiography. Or take Mary Boland or Laura Hope Crews, Crews it would seem she was more than just Aunt Pitty-Pat. She devoted a lifetime in the theater since a child, did a few silents(one that's in the LoC) and was a fixture in talkies and yet not a single work on her or Boland or Jane Cowl etc.. Does anyone remember H. Reeves Smith, William Courtenay, Thurston Hall? McFarland seems to be doing a great job resurrecting forgotten deserving personalities in biography form ie Margaritta Fischer and the informative quick read on Ford Sterling. Maybe some other personalities and their stories will be biographised in the future.

[Gagman 66]

Jeff Codori's Colleen Moore Biography is coming out after over a decades research. I was just hoping he would stick with the original title. "MOORE THAN MEETS THE EYE". Apparently he hasn't. Now lets get the restored LILAC TIME on TCM. They are re-airing the FRAGMENTS special tonight that debuted last April. It does have some Colleen Moore in it. Including the surviving footage of FLAMING YOUTH, and part of a trailer for HAPPINESS AHEAD.

[Roseha]

Wow, so glad I just came to the board, FRAGMENTS is on in less than 2 hours! Thanks for the note!

I agree with the overall thread here too, there are so many more people in the Silent Era that I would love to read about.

[Gagman 66]

Roseha,

It's a terrific program. In addition to Colleen Moore, there is Clara Bow footage, Rare Trailers, including ROUGH HOUSE ROSIE. Surviving scenes from THE WAY OF ALL FLESH with Emil Jannings Oscar Winning performance. Chaney's THE MIRACLE MAN, Baby Peggy Montgomery who is still alive is actually interviewed. Clip from her film THE DARLING OF NEW YORK (1923), Doug Fairbanks and much more. A great program. I would record it if I were you, since this is not on DVD and probably isn't going to be.

[silentfilm]

This is not a simple problem. Writing a well -researched biography takes a lot of time and investigation. It takes a dedicated researcher, who has the time and resources to do some digging. Just about everybody alive during the silent era is dead now. On the other hand, online resources are making newspaper and magazine research easier. But trips to various archives, not necessarily in the USA, are required for photo, document and film research.

And look at all of the biographies of Buster Keaton, and there is still not a good one out yet (although that is soon to change). People like Sally Dumax, James Curtis and Annette Lloyd take years to research their subjects. And then they have to convince a publisher to sell their work. Bear Manor and Scarecrow are wonderful to publish books on the stars we love, but there is not much money in writing a silent film biography. There is the satisfaction of doing a great job, and having the admiration of cinephiles too.

So be grateful for the many good books we do have like Kelly Brown's Florence Lawrence: The Biograph Girl and Laura Balough's Karl Dane.

If you are looking for short biographies of obscure performers, don't forget to consult Classic Images, where there are good (and sometimes average) biographies on many performers, famous and not-famous.

[Roseha]

A great program. I would record it if I were you, since this is not on DVD and probably isn't going to be.

Thanks very much Gagman, I have! and also just watched it. Fascinating, I hope there will be another one.

[Michael O'Regan]

They are re-airing the FRAGMENTS special tonight that debuted last April. It does have some Colleen Moore in it. Including the surviving footage of FLAMING YOUTH, and part of a trailer for HAPPINESS AHEAD.

What's this FRAGMENTS of which you speak?

[bobfells]

I can confirm the points that Bruce made above re book publishing. Also, I don't blame the publishers for focusing on stars who had stormy or controversial lives. The public has never been much interested in celebrities who were level-headed and sensible. That doesn't sell. It's asking a lot of professional writers to undertake a project that may be a labor of love but is unlikely to sell. They have bills to pay like anybody else. I kept my day job in publishing the Arliss book and its two sequels, and I made myself two promises in writing my various books: first, I would never pay to have them published, no vanity press. Second, I didn't care or expect to make any money from the books. It may be a dubious achievement but I've been true to both promises.

[Brooksie]

And then they have to convince a publisher to sell their work.

This alone makes all the other issues irrelevant. Publishers are more conservative than ever in their choices, for one simple reason: the most fascinating and well-written book about a silent star will still sell only a small fraction of what yet another rehashed Marilyn Monroe biog will pull in. It's the same reason 'The Wizard of Oz' receives a new restoration every couple of years, while your favourite obscure silent moulders on the shelf.

For an author, finding and researching a subject is the easier job. Conveying the interest and significance of your subject to a reader or publisher, rather than simply assuming that they will find the story as fascinating as you do, is the harder.

Even if you do go the vanity press route, that key challenge remains.

[telical]

Please don't forget that many of the greatest authors in history were self-published.

I don't have a list of them in front of me but the information is out there.

[bobfells]

Agreed. There's nothing wrong with self publishing. Today you can self publish without paying for it, except for any copies you choose to buy yourself. Even then, there's a whopping author's discount.please send me a PM if you have an ms that you have been unable to get published. It's the 21st century for heaven's sake and Guttenberg's technology has advanced.

[rudyfan]

Agreed. There's nothing wrong with self publishing. Today you can self publish without paying for it, except for any copies you choose to buy yourself. Even then, there's a whopping author's discount.please send me a PM if you have an ms that you have been unable to get published. It's the 21st century for heaven's sake and Guttenberg's technology has advanced.

Um, no there is not always. The best discount I can get on ordering copies of my book is 25% with a blurb promo code. The retail on the PB edition is $60, I pay $57.95 a copy without any discount. What gets discounted with any promo code, I end up paying back in state tax and shipping costs. It's hell being a self-published author.

That said, I am hoping the Doroth Gish bio will be published by a University Press like Kentucky or Mississippi. Of course, I need to finish research and then start to write. Come back in about 5 years time.....

[bobfells]

Donna, I guess the deals vary with the publisher. Scarecrow Press published my first Arliss book in hard cover and I receive a standard author's discount of 50% off the retail price. If you're willing to consider a paperback edition, my Arliss sequels and the Old Hollywood in Color book cost me about $12.50 per, whether I buy 100 copies or just one. There's no minimum. Each title is 8.5x11 inches, full color, approx 170 pages. At that price, they make great gifts. I offer to sign copies, advising friends that they can charge more for an autographed copy when they sell it on ebay.

[moviepas]

There was, and may well still be, a publisher out on the East Coast called Vantage Press. Once you made an query you got advertising materials ever more, it seemed. There deal was you paid for the first run and got so many copies free then if they went to a reprint they supposedly covered the reprint costs. People have said to me that it is rare for these self published books to run out of the first print. I never tried it.

I have come across some self-published books in my country where a publisher has taken over the project and reprinted. This is usually books that the author has gone out and commissioned a printer to print on his behalf, not thru a self-publish company. Some books in this country can get or used to get an Arts Grant from our federal government but the requirements were difficult to get grant approval in many cases and then others have been given a grant and written nary a word for years and a threat of having to return the grant spurs them on to do something. One female impersonator on our stage was a prime example. I think he finally got something done and published. But an attempt of a rort was pretty obvious with this guy.

[CliffordWeimer]

My friend Sgt. Bill Cassara has published books in the last few years on Edgar Kennedy and Vernon Dent. Those are hardly the "same personalities"...

[Brooksie]

Please don't forget that many of the greatest authors in history were self-published.

I don't have a list of them in front of me but the information is out there.

For sure - but the thing has still got to sell. And hence, my point again: particularly in the case of lesser known personalities, it isn't enough to love the story you're telling enough to want to tell it. You have to show your reader why they need to hear it. There's nothing worse than a biography where the details are interesting but the telling is dull, turgid, or worst of all, breathlessly unobjective.

Self publishing lets some genuinely decent stuff get at least some readership, but boy, there are also some shockers out there.

[Frederica]

For sure - but the thing has still got to sell. And hence, my point again: particularly in the case of lesser known personalities, it isn't enough to love the story you're telling enough to want to tell it. You have to show your reader why they need to hear it. There's nothing worse than a biography where the details are interesting but the telling is dull, turgid, or worst of all, breathlessly unobjective.

Self publishing lets some genuinely decent stuff get at least some readership, but boy, there are also some shockers out there.

I think that as e-publishing and e-readers take off, more writers will go the self-publishing route--you can publish something for Kindle directly through amazon.com, bypassing the publishing house altogether. The prices for Kindle books are lower than for traditional books, delivery is a breeze, and the author makes more profit per book or story, so it will be interesting to watch how this will affect publishing in the long term. Bypassing editorial and peer review is not a good thing, but those are services that many publishing houses had jettisoned anyway. Since I bought my kindle, I've downloaded quite a few self-published books...because they're CHEAP! You're right, many of them are appalling (adverbs, people! Stephen King is right, they are not your friend!) but a few have been quite good, and the writers have developed Kindle fan-bases.

[Rodney]

For sure - but the thing has still got to sell. And hence, my point again: particularly in the case of lesser known personalities, it isn't enough to love the story you're telling enough to want to tell it. You have to show your reader why they need to hear it. There's nothing worse than a biography where the details are interesting but the telling is dull, turgid, or worst of all, breathlessly unobjective.

Self publishing lets some genuinely decent stuff get at least some readership, but boy, there are also some shockers out there.

I think that as e-publishing and e-readers take off, more writers will go the self-publishing route--you can publish something for Kindle directly through amazon.com, bypassing the publishing house altogether. The prices for Kindle books are lower than for traditional books, delivery is a breeze, and the author makes more profit per book or story, so it will be interesting to watch how this will affect publishing in the long term. Bypassing editorial and peer review is not a good thing, but those are services that many publishing houses had jettisoned anyway. Since I bought my kindle, I've downloaded quite a few self-published books...because they're CHEAP! You're right, many of them are appalling (adverbs, people! Stephen King is right, they are not your friend!) but a few have been quite good, and the writers have developed Kindle fan-bases.

This has already happened in music, at least among non-blockbuster musical acts. You pretty much have to do your own CDs any more, being signed to a label is becoming a thing of the past. The trick is finding people interested in your CDs to buy them... Fortunately, firms like CD-Baby make it pretty easy for you to get your material out in downloadable format, without taking too big of a cut.