Archive for the 'American Apparel' Category

A Dov Charney Tell-All In The Works???

The internet and publishing world is buzzing about a possible Dov Charney tell-all written by American Apparel's marketing director Ryan Holiday.

The 24 year old is said to have banked at least $500,000 from Penguin Group's business division Portfolio, which is pretty major considering he's a first-time author.

However, it should be known that Ryan describes himself as a media manipulator and has some people thinking this is one giant publicity stunt.

The New York Observer received a copy of Holiday's proposal from a book publisher that outlines his "strategy".

The Press Release
The press release announcing the sale of this book is the perfect opportunity to create a compelling yet fake spectacle about the book. Relying on the fact that blogs and media outlets simply take for granted whatever is stated in a release, we will state in the press release that the advance given for this book was a spectacular sum. Blogs covering publishing and media will instantly pick up on the fact that a first time author was paid such an exorbitant amount. Combined with Ryan’s experience working with bestselling authors, this will immediately put the book on the radar of the media elites. That the information is all fake and part of a social experiment will be revealed later in the book itself—as evidence of the gullibility of the web and proof of concept.

Fake Leaked Chapters
Once the market is seeded with the “newsworthiness” of the project, we will begin a whisper campaign that Confessions of a Media Hit Man is actually a tell-all about tabloid targets Dov Charney and Tucker Max. This can be accomplished through a combination of anonymous and unnamed tips to gossip blogs with which Ryan already has relationships. Having created the impression that this book is both high profile—Implied by the dazzling advance—and full of insider secrets, we will leak entirely fabricated excerpts and chapters to various blogs claiming they were “too controversial” for the publisher to allow for publication. Again, this will be revealed later as proof of concept to the media outlet of our choice. The revelation will be a bombshell and cement Confessions of a Media Hit Man as a media sensation.

Inneresting, but now it makes us wonder if this whole strategy is a fake too.

Either way, bravo for getting the media world talking. That is the whole point, right?

What do U think???

[Image via Getty Images.]