A roundup of lit-related questions.

Too Much Sarah Palin?

The former Alaska Governor is slated to discuss her forthcoming memoir Going Rogue: An American Life on Oprah's show, November 16, the day before the book releases. Big surprise to me, Palin's book, which only took four months to write, is already a bestseller on the sites of Amazon and Barnes & Noble due to tremendous preorders. Go figure.

Imagine how the Oprah appearance will boost sales. I wonder how the talk show queen will approach the interview. What should she ask Palin? I'd probably begin with, "why?"

The publishing industry is definitely trying to cash in on the strange phenomenon that is Sarah Palin. There's the similarly titled book being released by new publisher OR books called Going Rouge: An American Nightmare edited by Richard Kim and Betsy Reed, two editors at the Nation. The book is a collection of essays intended to mock Palin. It will be released on November 17 too, and even features a similar cover. Bold move.

There's also Sarah from Alaska: The Sudden Rise and Brutal Education of a New Conservative Superstar by Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe which is supposed to illuminate "both the talents that helped make Palin a superstar and the traits that became liabilities under the intense pressures of a divisive national campaign."

Frank Bailey, a former aide to Palin is also supposedly writing a book entitled, Renegade: Sarah Palin's Hatchet Man, which doesn’t yet have a publisher. Bailey was at the forefront of the Troopergate scandal and has since stopped working for Alaska government. It's never a good idea to piss off close aides.

And that's just a few of the books about Palin. Who would have guessed that there'd be so much interest about her personal and political life?

Should More Authors Become Publishers?

There are many authors who dream of running their own publishing imprint. There are only a few who land them. One writer who immediately comes to mind is popular coauthor Karen Hunter (she's penned six bestsellers, including Confessions of a Video Vixen) who runs her own imprint under Simon & Schuster.

Recently, young, self-made millionaire Farrah Gray has launched his imprint, FG Publishing, under HCI, a publisher known for its self-help titles. Gray is an HCI author, known for his book Reallionaire: Nine Steps to Becoming Rich from the Inside Out. Publishers Weekly reports that FG Publishing's first title is Dear Dad: The Marley Son Who Persevered From the Street to Prominence by Bob Marley's son Ky-Mani Marley, and will drop February 2010. It's expected that Gray will use his brand and business savvy to help make the imprint and its books successful.