What’s it really like when your blog hits the big time and publishers come calling? Mimi Foe moved to the US with a masters degree in literature, failed to get a visa, and turned to stripping to make ends meet. She recorded it all in her beautifully written and often downright filthy blog Mimi in New York, described by the Guardian as “a blonde 26-year-old Cambridge graduate melds with New York’s immigrant community”. The blog quickly caught the attention of publishing insiders, and the book will be out in May 2007.
Continuing on from her feature article which asked if blogs make good books, Hannah Forbes Black spoke to Mimi about blogs, books and the trials of being typecast as a “sexmoirist”.
What do you think of this online into print publishing phenomenon with blogs turning into books?
To be perfectly honest, how many of these books have actually been any good? Belle de Jour’s blog was fun, but her books were really quite dull. Even Riverbend’s books are merely reproductions of her blog posts. I think if you’re going to write a book, write a book, don’t just copy and paste your diary into Word format! The two genres – blog and book – are utterly distinct. I did read an excellent book based on a blog – The Man Who Fell Asleep, by Greg Stekelman. It was a work of obscure genius, not just details of somebody’s rather sordid sex life in day by day accounts, but then that, I think, is because Greg is a writer who blogs, not a blogger trying to be a writer. There’s a big difference. I think the blog to book phenomenon is dying. It’s merely generated buzz around a few disappointing diary/monologues.
Why are so many of them by women, and about sex?
I have no idea. Perhaps it’s just me, but I find nothing titillating, sexy or interesting about middle-aged randy women and their inevitably disappointing sex lives, poking fun at men with wieners or boasting about their blow job technique. I think sex is something that will always sell though, and it’s a safe bet for publishers to unearth some female writer and recast them in the tried-and-tested mould of “erotic”, “sexy” and “shocking” girly writer. Now, of course, there’s this awful genre floating around called “sexmoir”, which seems to apply to every female writer who isn’t writing Booker prize winners, from Bridget Jones to promiscuous old hags eyeing up men like they were particularly delectable slabs of filet mignon. Sex is hard to write about at the best of times.
How did having a blog help you get published?
I wrote a novel when I was 23, and at 24 sent it off to agents. Several replied and said “we want you to write another book as this won’t sell”. One said “write a blog, that’s the big thing nowadays” – it was just after Belle de Jour’s success. I didn’t know what a blog was, but clicked around on the web a bit, and it seemed like a fun thing to do. To make it more fun I wrote under an old nickname, and really kind of experimented with the genre. I felt like Mimi was a character though, not me. Undoubtedly I wrote about things happening to me, but in the back of my head I was storing it all up for a novel. Well, I got a lot of press, and was approached by publishers and agents again asking me to write some commercial rubbish in the vein of the “sexmoir” genre I despise. I worked on something with an agent, but I just couldn’t do it. It felt like selling my soul! I broke with the agent and because I saw there was an opportunity to get some money out of this book and buy me time to write what I really wanted to write, I wrote the “Mimi” story down in MY way, got a new agent, and sold it on the crest of some more publicity. The blog was a means of generating interest. Now I shudder when I read some of the articles written about me, very embarrassing! Nowadays it’s about hype – it’s not, sadly, talent and skill that get you published. Think of Lionel Shriver’s amazing book, We Need To Talk about Kevin, it nearly didn’t get published because it wasn’t “pleasant” enough. I bet if she had an online diary about the menopause she would have sold it for half a million. Thank god it got out there eventually, which gives me some hope!
Tell us about the process?
After my first encounter with agents and publishers trying to get me to write some dreadful “stripper guide to sex”, I disappeared and worked hard on a novel based on the experiences of being illegal and working in the sex industry in New York. I then worked with another agent, and he sold the book for a large six-figure sum. I’ve always insisted that the book be marketed as dark, seedy, very Charles Bukowski, Brett Easton Ellis, JG Ballard kind of thing. Shocking, but edgy, sad, humorous and moving. I think, unfortunately, my manuscript received a lot of attention because of the sex element, and some people in the publishing world didn’t pause to consider that it did not sit easily into the easy-reading commercial genre.
Read more at Mimi’s blog.
Read the feature article: Do blogs make good books?
