Writers go rogue on Palin - Ex-governor's memoir already drawing parodies, including a coloring book

Writers go rogue on Palin - Ex-governor's memoir already drawing parodies, including a coloring book
By Erika Bolstad
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
November 8, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-talk_palin_coloringnov08,0,4006059.story



WASHINGTON -- The envy of nearly every other first-time author, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's good fortune includes an advance upward of $1.25 million, an appearance on Oprah Winfrey's talk show the day before publication and a print run of 1.5 million books for a memoir that already sits on best-seller lists.

So it's no surprise that in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 17 release date of "Going Rogue: An American Life," there are plenty of other authors hoping that they, too, can sell a few books in Palin's slipstream.

The first book hit stores Tuesday, a day before the anniversary of the 2008 presidential election that helped transform Palin from an obscure first-term U.S. governor to a sketch on "Saturday Night Live."

"Sarah from Alaska: The Sudden Rise and Brutal Education of a New Conservative Superstar" was written by Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe, two television reporters who followed Palin on the presidential campaign trail last fall.

Then, on the same day Palin's own book is published, comes a book of left-leaning essays, "Going Rouge: An American Nightmare." The book, with its parody title and strikingly similar cover art, was put together by two senior editors at The Nation magazine and will be available only on the Web site of its publisher, OR Books.

Because the parody "Going Rouge" is an Internet-only book, the similar cover won't trick people looking for Palin's book into a purchase. It's merely "an attempt to poke fun at her own cover," said John Oakes, co-publisher of OR Books.

The company's online strategy targets potential readers on political Web sites such as Politico and Wonkette, and so far, Oakes said, the Palin book has been so popular that brisk sales crashed their Web site.

There's also a satirical coloring book of the same name, from a husband-and-wife team hoping they're funny enough for an appearance on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report."

Julie Sigwart and Micheal Stinson's version of "Going Rouge," which will be sold at bookstores, is unrelated to the book of the same name by editors of The Nation.

Sigwart and Stinson's book also will be available on Amazon.com.

For the duo behind the "Going Rouge" coloring book, they just hope that funny sells.

"Sarah didn't write this book either," they said, joking about Palin's use of collaborator Lynn Vincent.