Laughing Stock Up

Tag : Corduroy Printed

Our sense of humor—what we find funny, and where we findit—has changed significantly over the years. We used to getmore of our laughs in cartoon form, whether it was The Simpsons , Doonesbury or The Far Side . Popular human humorists used to joke about family—ErmaBombeck tackled Motherhood in 1983; Bill Cosby took his turn with Fatherhood three years later. Before his retirement in 2004, syndicated humorcolumnist Dave Barry tackled parenthood, politics and exploding toilets.
But some not-so-funny things happened on the way to the newmillennium. A Supreme Court–settled presidential election,9/11, then the war in Iraq brought out a new bite in humor andrestored satire to its customary place as cultural (and political)commentary. The bestselling humor books of 2002 and 2003 wererather blackly so: Michael Moore's Stupid White Men and Dude, Where's My Country? flanked Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them . These titles, and the viral growth in cable television, whichbrought new commentators—and platforms—to the fore,laid the groundwork for the extraordinary success of Jon Stewart's America (the Book) , which sold 1.5 million hardcover copies in 2004. Last year,fellow Comedy Central funnyman Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!) , nearly matched Stewart's figure.
Jamie Raab, publisher at Grand Central Publishing, which producedColbert's tome and Stewart's (under Warner Books), says that sheknew at first glance that the material would transitionsuccessfully to book form. “They were true to what thecomedians do on television but formatted to work quite brilliantlyon the page,” says Raab. What did surprise her was the sheervolume of titles sold: “I think the market for humor is goingto expand in the next couple of years because things in the realworld are kind of grim,” she says. Or, to paraphrase aNovember Grand Central title by Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur: Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit ?
Publishers turning out humor titles today may not wholly share thegeneral public's malaise: The category has grown considerably sinceStewart and his fellow Daily Show writers turned out their version of history; there are now anadditional 450 titles to the annual output, according to Bowker.(See table, below.) Just as notable is the breadth of talents thathave been launched along the way. Topping the charts: DavidSedaris's clever, outré tales of social and familialdysfunction, popularized first on NPR's This American Life and in the pages of the New Yorker . Little, Brown released Me Talk Pretty One Day in 2000; the paperback sold 400,000 copies the next year and anadditional 200,000 the year after. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim , released in hardcover in 2004, sold 600,000 copies and beat outthe late George Carlin's When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? for the year's bestselling humor book. This week, Sedaris's When You Are Engulfed in Flames , which had an initial print run of 650,000 copies, marks it fifthweek on PW 's bestseller list—alternating between the top two slots.
Two other book's on PW 's nonfiction list typify the “hybridization” oftoday's humor books—melding comedy with memoir, socialcommentary or even religion. Chelsea Handler's Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea marks its 10th week on our list following its April publication bySimon Spotlight Entertainment. After a 45,000-copy first printing,the second book from the host of E!'s Chelsea Lately is up to 234,000 copies. “Chelsea performs her comedy everynight on her show and tours extensively performing stand-up,”says SSE publisher Jennifer Bergstrom. “She's not afraid ofbeing judged because her writing comes from her personalexperiences. And no matter how unique those experiencesare—like lying to her entire middle school by telling themthat she has been tapped to play Goldie Hawn's daughter in thesequel to Private Benjamin to gain popularity, or growing up with a dad who pees on thefamily's front lawn 'like a German Shepherd'—readers canrelate.”
Lewis Black's Me of Little Faith has 108,352 copies in print after three trips to press; it had athree-week run on PW 's list. The Yale School of Drama–educated funnyman is awriter at heart, says Jake Morrissey, executive editor at RiverheadBooks; his appeal is his strong point of view. “I think thekind of humor that's worked in the last decade or so has been lessgeneral and more specific in tone,” says Morrissey. “Itdemands of the audience an intelligence and connectedness to theworld around us that previous humor writing didn't.” Black'sessay collection, Morrissey says, is not an ad hominem attack onreligion, but rather an examination from all aspects of life.“We live in a time when we're exposed to televangelistsasking for money on TV and pundits sitting on Sunday talk showsdiscussing the faiths of different presidential candidates. Whatirritates [Black] most is hypocrisy.”
“Interest in books of humor essays has been with us sinceJames Thurber's My Life and Hard Times , or further back, to Mark Twain,” says Bruce Tracy,editorial director at Villard. “I do think that somewherearound the rise of Sedaris writers and editors and publishers andbooksellers began thinking of humor as a more commercially viablegenre.”
And whether from Thurber, Sedaris or others, short takes are astill-relevant means of examining life's more absurd moments.“It could be argued that regular novels are easier to sellthan short stories because the stories may require a reader torecommit,” says Tracy. “But with humor, it'sdifferent—you commit to a writer's sensibility.” InSeptember, Villard will publish Clothing Optional , an essay collection by Alan Zwiebel, who has won Emmy awards forhis TV writing (he was one of Saturday Night Live 's original writers) and whose 2006 novel, The Other Shulman , won the Thurber Prize for American Humor.
A current SNL writer, Simon Rich, has also found his voice in this short form.He received a two-book contract from Random House before hisHarvard diploma, in 2007. (Several of the essays from Rich's firstbook, Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations , were first published in the storied Harvard Lampoon , of which he was president in 2005.) “Simon's able to lookat slices of life and broad cultural things and find humor inthem,” says Jane von Mehren, publisher, trade paperbacks andModern Library at Random House, who says Ant Farm has more than 30,000 copies in print. Rich's follow-up, Free-Range Chickens , will be released next month.
“There's no hard or fast rule for success with a humorbook,” says St. Martin's executive editor Elizabeth Beier.“With so much great stuff pushed at us all every day, the barfor the types of humor books that can work has gottenhigher.” Last month St. Martin's published What Would Kinky Do? How to Unscrew a Screwed-Up World —a collection of previously published essays as well as newmaterial from Kinky Friedman, songwriter, humorist and formercandidate for Texas governor whose work includes the music album They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore .
“These are difficult times, and what makes shows like the Daily Show and The Colbert Report so brilliant is that they take on serious issues with a sense ofhumor,” says Brian Tart, publisher of Dutton, which inOctober will publish More Information than You Require , by writer and Daily Show “resident expert” John Hodgman. It's the follow-up toHodgman's first book, The Areas of My Expertise , a collection of trivia, reference material, all of it enobled bybeing completely fabricated.
A standup comic with universal appeal is Jeff Foxworthy, whoVillard's Tracy calls “a comedy legend” and whosesyndicated weekly show, The Foxworthy Countdown , is carried in more than 220 markets across the U.S. “Hespeaks to a between-the-coasts sensibility that's so specific andso identifiable,” Tracy adds, which is one reason thepublisher will be compiling his three bestselling “redneckdictionaries” into a single volume, Jeff Foxworthy's Complete Redneck Dictionary , for November release.
The Political Process: Jokes Aplenty
Few well-known, working humorists today are as prolific—orversatile—as Michael Moore, who penned the earlier-mentionedbestsellers in between provocative films like Fahrenheit 9/11 , Bowling for Columbine and Sicko . This summer, the Oscar–winning director's first book infive years tackles the American democratic process. “He's agenius... [he] knows exactly when to stop pounding the podium toget people to laugh,” says Raab of Grand Central. Though therelease of Mike's Election Guide is timed for the political conventions this August, Moore'scommentary reaches beyond this cycle, detailing and/or deriding thepolitical process with questions, lists and riffs on KinkyFriedman's philosophical question: “Who Would Jesus VoteFor?”
Another standard-bearer for political humor is MAD magazine, whose editors will release MAD About Politics: An Outrageous Pop-Up Political Parody through Palace Press International's Insight Editions inSeptember. The book, chockful of pop-ups, inserts, booklets andposters, offers up MAD mascot Alfred E. Neuman as a presidential possibility. “Inthe face of all the overwhelming political frustrations and thecircus the presidential arena has become, there's always MAD magazine's response: 'What, me worry?', ” says Jake Gerli,director of acquisitions for Palace Publishing Group. “Whenyou look at the amount of caricature of candidates in recentmemory, Alfred seems just as qualified and as relevant.”
But with round-the-clock cable TV and Internet coverage of thecampaign delivering a new gaffe a second, we don't have much timefor recent memory. Though the early primary season feels likehistory, we do remember the gems. When Mike Huckabee toured thecountry with hopes of earning the Republican nod last fall, it washard to find a rally at which the Arkansas governor was not flankedby martial arts hero and Walker, Texas Ranger star Chuck Norris. In short order, Gotham Books acquired The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About the World's GreatestHuman from Ian Spector, a then–19-year-old Brown Universityundergraduate who'd created the “Chuck Norris FactGenerator” on his personal Web site. Gotham president andpublisher William Shinker says that the key to capitalizing on thistype of moment is to zero in on a trend, determine whether or notit has staying power, and to get it out into the marketplace asquickly as possible. The Truth About Chuck Norris , Shinker notes, has sold 170,000 copies after 13 printings.
Another of Gotham's election-themed books, due in August, has amore obvious target but a more innovative title—taken fromthe author's popular blog, barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com “It's tough to say what makes anything funny,” saysthe book's editor, Patrick Mulligan. In this case, the premise wassimple: When writer and Web programmer Mathew Honan's wife, an avidcyclist, was trying to articulate exactly what excited her aboutObama's candidacy, Honan found the perfect metaphor: Barack Obamais your new bicycle. Five hours later, he'd created a simple Website; within two weeks, three million users had checked it out.Subtitled 366 Ways He Really Cares , the Gotham book “is basically a collection of nice thingsthat Barack Obama has done for you,” says Mulligan.“For example, he's saved you some dessert.”
Fireside pokes fun at the Republican nominee with the print versionof Joe Quint's popular blog, 72 Things Younger than John McCain , which will be released on August 29 (McCain's 72th birthday).“This is a very serious time in America—shouldn't therebe something that helps us laugh a little bit?” asks Firesidepublisher Mark Gompertz. “Obviously you have to tickle thefunny bone first, but the other thing you have to do issurprise.” In addition to the book's clever captions,“there really are facts worth collecting,” saysGompertz. For example: the Jefferson Memorial is actually youngerthan John McCain. “It was in the works, but the statue wasn'tdedicated until seven years after McCain was born,” saysGompertz. Other pop-culture icons that followed the Arizonasenator: Alaska, McDonald's and Bugs Bunny.
Fireside's other politically themed book—alsoInternet-informed—is Obamamania: The English Language Barackafied . The paperback, which was released July 1, takes a page from the Slate editors who had so much success with the six-book George W. Bushisms series. Since launching their Encyclopedia Baracktannica inFebruary, more than 800 readers have written in with their ownwords. Among them, “Obamalaise—the emotional hangoverresulting from repeatedly watching 'Yes We Can' montages.”
The only way publishers today seem to be willing to laugh at theircurrent president is by bidding him adieu. Goodnight Bush , a parody of the bestselling children's classic by Margaret WiseBrown, arrived, unsolicited, into the mailbox of Little, Brown'seditor-in-chief Geoff Shandler. “I opened it up, read it,thought it was brilliant, and everyone else here did too,” hesays. The book, published in May—featuring a “quietDick Cheney whispering 'hush' ”—has already beenreprinted three times.
Jason Rekulak, editorial director at Quirk Books, says he receivesone or two humor book proposals a month and is constantly turningthem down. He felt differently when he saw Pardon My President: Ready-to-Mail Apologies for 8 Years of GeorgeW. Bush , by Seth Grahame-Smith. Among the manufactured mea culpas: somefor Harry M. Whittington (“I'm sorry Dick Cheney shot you inthe face”), the people of France (for “FreedomFries”), and the city of New Orleans. “I like that thisbook both works as a historical document and closes the story onthe presidency,” says Rekulak. “But he'll probably dosomething this summer that we'll wish we could squeeze into thebook!”
Take My Blog, Please
“There's a lot of funny out there for free, so when I look ata humor book proposal now, I'm merciless: the concept and executionhad better be rock solid and there better be a clear market and/ora really nice author platform,” says David Cashion, executiveeditor of Abrams Image, which in May published a title that nods toone of the most successful examples of Web-related content— The Facebook Book . “Facebook is so huge that it really transcends itsonline-ness,” says Cashion. “It's part of the culturalvocabulary now, and the book is the next logical step of humoroussocial commentary in the tradition of titles like The Preppy Handbook and The Hipster Handbook .”
This month Random House released Stuff White People Like by Toronto native Christian Lander, who created a similarly namedblog that, according to the LA Weekly , has received as many as 720,000 hits in a single day. “Itgrew so big, so fast,” says von Mehren. “It was thekind of humor where you want to say, 'Have you seen this? Have youheard this?' ” She says the book expands on the blog's basicpremise—a largely pop-culture inspired list of, well, you canguess (some examples include panini, Restoration Hardware and DavidSedaris)—and offers a variety of new material.
“For some authors, the Internet is a great marketingtool,” says Michaela Hamilton, editor-in-chief ofKensington's Citadel imprint. “If they have a following, thefollowing will buy the book.” One of Citadel's successstories has been Tucker Max's I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell , inspired by a blog of the same name and first published in 2006.The book has been on the New York Times printed bestseller list every week this year and will be reissuedin January.
Later this fall, Citadel will release The BBook of Geek: The Only Geek Humor Book You'll Ever Need , by Brian Briggs of Bbspot.com , which, according to the publisher, receives two million pageviews from about 600,000 readers every month. To woo loyal blogreaders away from the screen, the book promises to“simultaneously poke fun at and celebrate every subject closeto a geek's heart—from The Matrix to MacGyver , from Linux to Stan Lee.” Until then, the trivia hungry canchew on this month's Underrated: The Yankee Pot Roast Book of Awesome UnderappreciatedStuff by Geoff Wolinetz, Nick Jezarian and Josh Abraham, basedon—you guessed it— yankeepotroast.org . Catch a Rising Star
Since 2004—the year of Jon Stewart's megaselling America (theBook), the humor category has grown. Titles published rose to 1600in '07, a jump of 39% in three years.