Angela Nicole Parker

I don't think of myself as "A Hater," I admire people who can work what they got to grab that brass ring, but when I walked past Barnes and Nobles in The Grove and saw that Nicole Polizzi aka Snooki was having a BOOK SIGNING I nearly fainted. For those of you who don't know who Snooki is, she is the "star" of The Reality Show Jersey Shore. No offense to Ms. Snooki but she didn't strike me as the type who read, let alone wrote, but who knows she probably had a copy of Pride and Prejudice under her bed during all those spats.

Ms. Snooki is just the latest reality television thespian to use their show as a spring board to something else, but as someone who is working hard to sell my writings, the thought that she is living my dream made me feel a little depressed. I'm told that the publishing business is hurting and they are looking for that shore thing, people like Snooki, Nicole Richie, NeNe Leakes and Lauren Conrad  have a ready-made audience, and book deals that are alluding all us struggling authors. I know that connections make the world go round, but geesh this sucks.

Do people really want to read books just because "a name wrote it?" Can we program somebody to like a book the way the music industry gets us to like a whack song by playing over and over again until repetition and familiarity finally make us surrender to its charms?

I suppose I'm jealous. I'd like to be the chosen one who has publishing companies coming to me, instead of the other way around, but it made me think about he positives of how the publishing world is changing as well. The trick is always going to be to find your niche. For most of us, that book deal isn't going to be handed to us on a silver platter, we are going to  have work hard for it and find innovative ways to build our audience and live our dreams.

As for Ms. Snooki, I wish her luck, but now it's time for me to get back to the work of writing. Who knows maybe this time next year I'll be at Barnes and Nobles signing my books and it will be somebody else's turn to be jealous of me.