Melville House Books

A British publisher has announced that because so many retailers have asked him for it, he’s crashing a book about Michael Jackson. According to a report on The Bookseller by Catherine Neilan, the indie publisher John Blake will be releasing the ingeniously-titled Michael Jackson — King of Pop: 1958-2009, written by Emily Herbert, who is identified not as a journalist by a “long-time fan of Jackson.” The book will be released as a “B-format” paperback on August 24th with a first printing of 100,000 copies. Blake says he’s only doing it because of “widespread requests from retailers” — to him personally, it seems. 

Not that other publishers, snubbed by those “retailers,” are not going about their business in similar, hurried fashion. Neilan goes on to report numerous other books forthcoming on Jackson, including some old books being quickly retooled. Meanwhile, she notes how retailers are indeed trying to jump on the funereal bandwagon, with both Amazon.com and the Book Depository adding Michael Jackson sections to their home pages. At Amazon, two Jackson books – Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness by J Randy Taraborrelli, and Moonwalk by Michael Jackson himself — are both in the top 100 bestsellers already, even though the latter is out of print. Most likely, it won’t be for long.

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.