Soooo, what happens when a celebrity-by-association puts out a book on hiding veggies in otherwise innocuous foods? Well, at first it's all Oprah love (sez FameCrawler) and interviews, and then...the backlash. Critics of the covert food strategy pointed out that camoflaguing foods could keep your kids from developing good eating habits that include appreciating stuff with seeds, and leafy greens, and so on. (And by the way, my child will be eating all her meals at CityMama's house from now on.) And then on Friday the NY Times and other places reported that Ms. Seinfeld's book bears an uncanny resemblance to another book on the market, The Sneaky Chef, written by Missy Chase Lapine and published in April. Ooops.
Now here's where it gets extra bad: Of course, Missy Lapine submitted her book proposal to HarperCollins (Seinfeld's publisher) but was rejected because her idea was too, um, similar to another one of their books. Then when Jessica Seinfeld came knocking two weeks later with the same idea and a William Morris agent, they took her call and the rest is history. Seinfeld's agent described her in a cover letter as, "smart, stunning, and infinitely promotable" and clearly the key word here is promotable.
Seinfeld claims ignorance of Lapine's book. Jezebel points out that generally when you put out a book, you look at competing titles, so this could be disingenuous. I think it's just as likely that she didn't see the book, because when you are so promotable you don't really have to do research or all the stuff other authors have to do (though I'm--uh, let's say 'surprised'--nobody at the publishing house or agency found the similar book). If Seinfeld didn't have that big name and attractive grin I doubt she'd be getting this much fallout, but it sounds like she also might not have been published in the first place. Hmmm, is this justice?
