Maggie de Beer Cover Image

We have an excellent new cover. Using the same model, (see picture in previous post), designer Elliot Thomson has created a look which is eerily reminiscent of the sort of poster I would have had on the walls of my Earls Court bedsit in the very early Seventies.

My publisher, Paul Hurst, is now preparing for the technical launch into the cyber marketplace.

Fifteen year-old Maggie arrives in London on the run from her humdrum suburban life, determined to make it big in show business.

For more than thirty years she is exploited by both men and the media. She struggles against endless set-backs and disappointments, always remaining optimistic, always believing that this time her big break has come. Then, when most of us would have given up all hope, the celebrity circus rockets her to bizarre and unexpected pinnacles of fame.

Starting in 1970 Maggie de Beer’s journey mirrors the rise of celebrity culture and the growth of the media which ruthlessly created it, exploiting and destroying the lives of girls like Maggie who willingly offered themselves up, happy to make any amount of personal sacrifices in exchange for a chance to live the dream. She is determined to make herself “interesting” and only when she finally achieves her goal, at enormous personal cost, does she discover, under the full glare of the media spotlight, that the family she was running away from was never as humdrum as she had believed.

“This, I thought as the chauffeured car slid me back from Park Lane to Earls Court behind darkened windows, is what life must have been like for party girls like Christine Keeler in the sixties. I had found my Xanadu, the place where I was meant to be …”

This is the story of a woman who just wanted to be recognised and loved by the whole world.

Keira Knightly as a Packaging Concept.

The Bookseller charts are out again “Cry Silent Tears” by Joe Peters has slipped to number two in paperback non-fiction, despite selling virtually the same number of copies as during the four weeks of its reign at number one. It has been overtaken by “The Duchess”, the Amanda Foreman biography which has just been released as a film starring the divine Keira. Although it is always annoying to be knocked off the number one perch, there are some silver linings to be found here.

Firstly it is great to know that a book of the quality of “The Duchess” can be taken to the top of the charts with the right packaging and promotional push. It proves yet again that there are lots of people out there who want to read good stuff if they can just be shown where it is and why they will enjoy it.
My second hope is that if Keira’s porcelain features on the cover can work such wonders for Amanda, fellow actress Olivia Grodd’s porcelain features might work a similar miracle in the cover picture of “The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride”.

All we need now is major feature film of Steffi and Bob’s your uncle.