The Jon-Jon Goulian Bubble Bomb
Inexplicable east coast elite media obsession and former assistant Jon-Jon Goulian — “another of the season’s publishing darlings”! “the cross-dressing literary sensation”! “a kind of mascot for the city’s literary A-list”! says the New York Times, in three different articles, apart from his memoir’s two reviews in the paper — is apparently a $700,000 bust for Random House. “The book has sold 957 copies in its first month, according to sources with access to Nielsen BookScan, which monitors 50 to 75 percent of total sales. Insiders say Random House would have to move about 200,000 copies to see a profit. The hardcover was ranked at a lowly No. 116,210 on Amazon yesterday,” says today’s Page Six. And then the publishing industry abruptly stood up as one and decided to stop overspending on ridiculous advances for things that make no sense! Nope, you guessed it: totally kidding about that.