Good news. I can now offer some copies of my book Bitch and Famous at a special reduced price of only $15.00. You can get them on www.trademe.co.nz by searching Bitch and Famous or see other payment methods below. This is a significant saving as it retailed for $37.00 so if you haven't got around to buying it now is the time as I don't have many left. Perhaps there is a woman in your life who needs some work/life balance and would relate to my story or is interested in what goes on behind the scenes in the women's mags? It would make a great Christmas present for Mum, Grandma, your sister or girlfriend. Or maybe your book club would like to read it and you can take advantage of my special bulk offer which is $100 for 10 books. A bargain.
I'll also sign each copy and dedicate it to you or someone special.
Here's what the back cover says:
For more than 25 years, Wendyl Nissen has been at the front of the media pack, first as an eager young journalist, then as the influential editor of a string of high-profile women's magazines, a television producer and writer, and as a popular radio commetnator and columnist.
Throughout her career, she has crossed paths and swords with local and international celebrities. Now, she reveals the tricks of her trade, from espionage and arm-twisting to the creation of instant celebs and the truth about who gets paid how much in ‘cheque-book journalism’.But Bitch & Famous is not just about the glossy world of magazines and TV. Nissen also shares the personal challenges and heartaches she has faced throughout her turbulent career. She writes about her relationships and marriages, the demands of juggling motherhood with driving ambition and the despair of losing her baby daughter to cot death in 1992.In this raw, clever and funny memoir, Wendyl Nissen lifts the lid on the New Zealand magazine and TV industries, and lets us look into the life of a woman whose trademark no-nonsense approach has made her many friends – and enemies – along the way.
Go here for a TV interview about the book:
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/video_popup_windows_skin/1478886Here's what the reviewers said about Bitch and Famous:
I have to say I really genuinely loved this book and I really didn’t expect to. I expected to gag at her bitchiness and shallowness and be irritated by an endless parade of pseudo macho conflict driven encounters by people who are famous only for being famous. There’s a bit of all that but Wendyl’s writing is so good and her personal insights so raw and honest that one simply can’t help responding to her as a human and not just the bitch of the title. Wendyl is best known as the editor of mega selling women’s magazines especially Woman’s Day right at the time when chequebook journalism came to town. So while this is very much Wendyl’s own story the loss of her child through cot death, her breakdowns, her husbands, her friendships it’s also the story of her industry - the media. She offers real insights into the daily life of magazine editors and journalists, their pre-occupations and the lengths that must be gone to, to secure stories. There are tonnes of famous people scattered through these pages. She seems to know or have known or no longer be speaking to many of our household names. Paul Holmes, Susan Wood,Lorraine and Aaron Cohen and many others. And she tells great stories about them, sometimes bitchy but often just sharply insightful and very fond. Often crass, always outspoken she is a woman of outrageous cheek and unusual sensibility and intelligence. I strongly recommend picking up a copy of Bitch and Famous.
Review by Margie Thomson, Easymix radio.
I bet there are a few A List celebs who’ve been trembling in their imported Italian shoes, wondering how they’ll fare in Wendyl Nissen’s expose of life behind the covers of the glossy magazines we see on our newsstands every week. Nissen is the ne plus ultra of magazine editors - at varying times, she’s been the brains behind Women’s Day and the New Zealand Women’s Weekly and during the eighties she was part of the process of creating celebs in this small town. Pre 1985, television presenters were heard not seen and it was considered a sign of poor story telling if you had to stick your face in front of the camera. By the end of the 1990s New Zealand’s small screen stars were commanding big bucks for selling their marriages and babies to the women’s mags and more often than not, it was Nissen who got the juiciest plums. This is an unflinching look at life at the top of the magazine publishing industry in New Zealand, and the people who help shift the mags. Nissen doesn’t pull her punches and the language would make a wharfie blush. Not only does the f word feature prominently, the c word even made it past the editors! But that’s Wendyl - colourful, strong, opinionated, brutally honest - especially about herself - and always fair. At times, the books a little confusing as Nissen doesn’t recount her life chronologically - but really, that’s not too much of a distraction as the book reads like a conversation with a particularly fabulous friend over lunch. And by the end of the book, you’ll be hoping to be one of the people on Wendyl’s lunch date list.
Review by Kerre Woodham, Paperplus.
All you have to do is send a cheque for $15 plus $2.50 postage to:
W Nissen
P.O. Box 78361,
Grey Lynn,
Auckland 2045.
Be sure to include your postal address, and the name of the person you would like me to dedicate it to.
If you'd like to pay by internet email me at wendyl.nissen@gmail.com for bank account details.
