Aleen Kuperman is co-founder and CEO at Betches Media. The company has grown from a blog created in a dorm room at Cornell in 2011 to a sprawling media network including nine podcasts, New York Times-bestselling books and millions of Instagram followers. In this episode of the “Ad Block” podcast, Kuperman talks about growing up as the child of Russian immigrants who escaped the Soviet Union in 1988, a year before the Berlin Wall fell. In particular, it was a struggle to explicate what “Betches” was to her parents, who had always had high expectations for her future. “I had to explain to my parents, ‘I’m not going to medical school next year,’” she says. “I was terrified to have that conversation. They were like, ‘What’s a blog? How are you making money? What are you talking about?’” As with many new media startups, the business model evolved quickly, and as soon as she had gotten her parents on board, things would change. “They had just figured out Facebook, now they have to go learn Instagram,” Kuperman says. Tangible successes helped, like the book deal the team landed while still in college. “To my parents, that’s legit. A book, they understand.” Kuperman grew up hearing the stories of the family’s journey out of Russia, living in Vienna and Italy off the personal possessions they could sell before eventually being allowed into the U.S. and settling on Long Island. “Only now, I think back to all the things they instilled,” like her strong work ethic, she says. “It... Continue reading at 'Advertising Age'
[ Advertising Age | 2019-10-18 09:01:00 UTC ]
Natasha Pulley grounds her latest novel in a 20th-century event: a 1957 nuclear explosion in the Soviet Union. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-07-24 12:00:32 UTC ]
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Insiders say outgoing prime minister unlikely to write about personal life but book deal possible this autumnBoris Johnson could be paid more than £1m for his memoir, according to publishing insiders. But anyone expecting a kiss-and-tell may be disappointed, as industry professionals have said... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-07-15 10:12:09 UTC ]
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Springer Nature calls its arrangement, through the Max Planck Digital Library, its largest open-access institutional book deal yet. By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson More Than 80 Max Planck Institutes Participating in an agreement the company calls its largest institutional... Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2022-05-13 00:44:39 UTC ]
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Ex-president blocked Shealah Craighead plan and then made up to $20m from publishing images in own memoir, New York Times saysDonald Trump blocked plans by his chief White House photographer to publish a book of pictures of his time in power – then published a book of such images himself, the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-03-31 22:37:41 UTC ]
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Pop star’s memoir was subject of a massive bidding war, and comes weeks after she sent a cease-and-desist letter to her sister over her own autobiographyBritney Spears has landed a “record-breaking” publishing deal for a tell-all memoir about her rise to fame, her relationship with her family... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-02-22 01:12:57 UTC ]
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Author of Chocolat says she does not use words ‘accidentally’The bestselling author Joanne Harris has turned down a US book deal after the publishers demanded she take out an “f-bomb” from the novel.The Chocolat author, who lives near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, tweeted on Saturday: “Today I... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-02-19 14:04:53 UTC ]
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In April, back when a few Cuomosexuals still roamed New York, the Times Union published interviews with anonymous current and former Cuomo staffers claiming they were given tasks related to Cuomo’s memoir about the COVID-19 pandemic, American Crisis, for which Cuomo had received a whopping $5... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-11-23 18:37:46 UTC ]
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Interviews Dimitris Lyacos with Marsias / Photo by Walter Melcher In 2019 I interviewed Dimitris Lyacos on the occasion of the US tour/launch of his trilogy, Poena Damni, which had been recently released in the English complete edition. When we... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-10-04 20:23:19 UTC ]
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Piers Morgan will be presenting a nightly talkshow in this new venture aimed at outflanking the ailing GB NewsThe human Marmite of British journalism, Piers Morgan, is about to be spread very thinly. He has signed a global commentary deal with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. A nightly talkshow will... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-09-19 17:07:41 UTC ]
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Jamie Oliver is aiming to find the next big cookbook star in a TV series from Channel 4 and Penguin Michael Joseph, with the winner securing their own book deal. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-06 11:26:19 UTC ]
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Jonathan Mattingly is seeking a new publisher for his account of the shooting after Simon & Schuster refused to distribute it for Post Hill PressOne of the police officers involved in the shooting of Breonna Taylor has pulled out of his book deal with a conservative press four months after... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-08-23 13:25:33 UTC ]
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The Duke of Sussex's news coincided with his first public appearance in the U.S. since the birth of his daughter, Lilibet. Continue reading at The Huffington Post
[ The Huffington Post | 2021-08-20 15:50:27 UTC ]
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The white woman behind the popular Instagram account @soyouwanttotalkabout has apologised after claims that she has co-opted the black author’s brandThe white woman behind an Instagram account with almost three million followers has apologised for the “harm” she caused to bestselling black... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-08-16 16:19:00 UTC ]
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Quercus has acquired One Italian Summer and a second book from American author Rebecca Serle. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-07-01 19:33:59 UTC ]
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Petition signed by more than 200 Simon & Schuster employees delivered to publishing house also calls for end to deals with members of Trump administrationMore than 200 members of staff at Simon & Schuster have signed a petition calling for the publishing house to cancel its seven-figure... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-04-27 13:55:17 UTC ]
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Simon & Schuster president Jonathan Karp says seven-figure book deal will go ahead, after open letter from employees accuses publisher of being ‘on the wrong side of justice’Simon & Schuster has said it will not pull out of a seven-figure book deal with Mike Pence after some of its... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-04-21 12:05:44 UTC ]
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Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, one of the officers involved in the fatal shooting, has a book deal with a small press, but its distributor, Simon & Schuster, in an unusual move, said it won’t ship it. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-04-16 22:14:05 UTC ]
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Days before Republican John Boehner releases his party-pounding book from Macmillan, Trump's vice-president gets a book deal of his own. The post Simon & Schuster Signs Two-Book Deal With Mike Pence appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-04-08 16:52:35 UTC ]
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I started querying agents for my memoir, Negative Space, in 2012, after two years of writing and revising. I got a few rounds of passes, including several friendly rejections in which agents said they just didn’t “know how to sell” my book. I heard this refrain enough times that I started... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-03-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Perhaps it’s not surprising that even the prose in illustrator Forsyth Harmon’s debut novel Justine is deeply imagistic. Reading this short, powerful story feels like wandering through a museum exhibit about teenage girlhood on Long Island in the summer of 1999. Narrator Ali and her friends feed... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-03-02 12:00:00 UTC ]
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