Two weekends ago, I was sitting in my hair stylist's swingy black chair and while she painted my brassy brown locks back to gold, we somehow got onto the topic of Mad Libs. At which point, she stopped wrapping my wet hair in tin foil and bent down to grab out two copies of Mad Libs from her purse. But these weren't just any Mad Libs. No. These were my Mad Libs. Let me explain.
About three years ago -- I can't quite believe that myself -- I worked for a nifty little Penguin imprint we'll call CBs. While at this nifty little imprint, we launched a series of books based on the Mad Libs brand which we entitled Adult Mad Libs (because we were oh so clever that way). The idea was to take the known kid-friendly quantity and skew it for a mature audience. Basically, we make up quirky titles that women would find intriguing then fill the pad with fill-in-the-blank games with stories that sounded an awful lot like they might have come from a woman's magazine or a cheeky episode of Sex and the City. And this is exactly how they were written. When the manuscripts first started showing up, we had a hand-shake deal to show them to the originators of the series who are still around. While they no longer write the games, they still are the gate keepers, and when the gate keepers took one look at our manuscripts, they slammed the gate in my face and swallowed the key. However, they were willing to have to talks with me without pre-conditions, and eventually they took me under their wings. I drank the Kool Aid...and I liked it! Oh yeah! Anyway, what that meant was, I was under the gun to turn around the existing games with my new found knowledge in a very short time. I called up a comedian/writer friend of mine and negotiated a tough contract with her: She helps me re-write the games and I'll buy her a pizza dinner with my Penguin AmEx. What can I say? I exploited a starving artist. Shoot me. That night, we worked on four titles, probably wrote about 40 games a piece, and turned around the books enough to get them by the gate keepers and into the publishing process. Yeah me! (And her...but mostly me because this is my blog.)
So, you see, the two titles that my hairstylist pulled out of her bag were two of the four titles that I helped ghost write and eventually edited and got out the door all without chipping a nail or taking hallucinogenic drugs. I asked where she got them. "Urban Outfitters. I saw them and I thought they were cute. And cheap!" I nodded my head and said, "Yes, they are." And at $3.99 a piece, they are. But what I was thinking was URBAN OUTFITTERS! AGH!
CBs's main business objective was -- first and foremost -- get a book into Urban Outfitters. "It's perfect for Urban Outfitters" we'd say in our editorial meetings while trying to get something past our boss. In hindsight, I don't know why were so high on the idea. It might have to do with the fact that, for the most part, book people aren't hipsters. And we certainly don't know what the kids are up to -- not even when we were kids ourselves considering most of us were reading Austen or the Bronte sisters wishing that somehow we could be transported back in time, corsets and TB included. But it never happened. Our Sales team never could seem to get anywhere with the Urban Outfitter buyer (or any other buyer that wasn't owned by Mr. Walton -- which is why our nifty little imprint collapsed). The excuse seemed to be that UO was not a bookstore ergo their selection of titles is quite small and therefore they were very discriminating about which books they did accept. And we weren't accepted. (Nothing has changed much since 7th grade.) So an arranged marriage -- or perhaps I should say a common law marriage since we're talking about UO -- between Adult Mad Libs and Urban Outfitters was not meant to be. Until...
About four months ago, possibly longer, I got an email from a former CBs co-worker of mine who is still employed by Penguin. She forwarded me an inquiry from the kids Mad Libs editor. It seems that the juvenile division of Penguin was interested in picking up the now defunct CBs Adult Mad Libs brand. Not only were they now controlling my four titles (plus four others my not-as-starving-as-I-once-was artist friend wrote), but they were looking into expanding the brand with more titles. Marketing questions were asked, and that was the last I heard of it. However! It occurred to me while sitting in my hair stylist's swingy black chair that somehow the juvenile department's Sales team was able to sell into Urban Outfitters (she thought in a snotty, "how is that, huh?" kind of way). My product was good enough for them. I wasn't rejected by the cool kids. I was just ahead of my time...and hanging out the wrong crowd! Which, might I say, is the story of my life. And for some reason, due to probably the late hour and the copious amounts of Halloween candy I ingested, I was pissed about this last night. I got out of bed at 2AM and logged onto Amazon.com to check out what the juvenile department has in store for Urban Outfitters 2009. Bastards.
First, may I say, the covers for the new Adult Mad Libs including the font is waaay cooler than what I had. They should have no problem selling into those funky retailers (No. No, I'm not bitter! Not AT ALL). Second, the titles are just as lame as mine were except more derivative (hmph, she smirked, mollified some.) Third, there is now a "Mammoth" Adult Mad Lib game book out which probably took all eight of my titles and put them into one book. HEY! But, after grumbling about how unfair it all is, and how they could do so much more with them if only I was still in charge, goddammit, I clicked over to my titles to see where they were rated. And then...what's this? REVIEWS! Customer reviews. HAPPY CUSTOMER REVIEWS! Reviewers have given me 5 stars. On almost all of them. Oh, happy day! (Since it was 3AM by this point, "day" would be correct.) The Who Moved My Cubicle AML on working got three reviews (the most). One guy used them for a job building strategy. Party Girl got two reviews that said they were funny and people must buy it. Test Your Relationship I.Q. got two, too. The baby shower one got 4 stars from a post-childbirth teacher of some sort! Hey, I'll take it! People loved my little Mad Libs -- bad non-corresponding covers, cheap font, and all. And like when Bridget Jones found out that Mark Darcy liked her just the way she was, I felt validated..and vindicated. I felt hip and cool and teary eyed, and it had nothing to do with my PMS or the fact I was suddenly exhausted. Not at all. So, I logged off and I went to bed...happy and no longer mad. For now. I'm sure something else will arise tomorrow.
1 comment:
Between this entry and the last, you seem to be having ptsd re CBs!
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