Philip Van Munching The Devil's Adman - Ellen Fein divorcing husband - Brief Article - Editorial

So you write a book on how to perform brain surgery, and on the eve of publication it comes out that the only patient you ever cut into went veggie on you. That's a problem, right? Not according to The Rules.

Proof that we're still living in ironic times: Ellen Fein, one half of the duo behind the new book The Rules for Marriage: Time-Tested Secrets for Making Your Marriage Work, is leaving her husband.

Interestingly, while she filed for divorce early in 2000, Fein didn't bother to tell her publisher until covers for the book had already been printed. Until there's a second printing, the jacket copy reads, in part, "Ellen and Sherrie (Schneider, her co-author), two longtime married women themselves, know that just because you've married the man of your dreams doesn't mean your work has ended; good marriages don't happen by accident."

They just end by accident, at least according to Fein. The woman who wants to tell you how to run your marriage says hers was done in by the sudden fame sparked by the success following their first book, The Rules. Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. "If you become an overnight international celebrity, have a plan," she told The New York Times, adding that "the most explosive cult movement ever happened to my little family." (Is this self-aggrandizement, or just pre-sell for her next book, The Rules: Handling Overnight International Celebrity?)

Noting the irony of the situation has become easy sport. The Wall Street Journal giddily pointed out a boast from the first book that "a 'Rules' marriage is forever," and noted that Fein once slammed a fellow Oprah panelist for being divorced and therefore less credible on the subject of marriage. The coverage of Fein's sticky situation would suggest that the press thinks the whole thing is a marketing challenge for Fein and her publisher.

It isn't. It's a brilliant marketing strategy. Do the math: The first Rules book sold some two million copies, while its inevitable follow-up, The Rules II: More Rules to Live and Love By, sold about 350,000. What does that bode for Rules III? Sixty-thousand? Surely Fein realized that her 15 minutes were up when the second book did a fraction of the first book's sales, and that it would take something special to get her back in the spotlight.

(Note to Ms. Fein's lawyer: I'm not suggesting that your client dumped her hubby to sell a few more books, I'm merely admiring her ability to make chicken salad out of you-know-what.)

My lovely (and annoyingly rational) wife can't understand how this kind of publicity will help sell more copies of Rules III. How, she wonders, could stories that gleefully point out Fein's hypocrisy move folks to buy her book? Well, dear, it's simple: So many people are desperate to be given a road map for living, they don't much care how crudely drawn the map is, or even who drew it. That was made blindingly clear when sales of the first Rules book--nothing more than a cold porridge of common sense and feminist-baiting "insight"--merited its translation into 27 languages. Desperate, gullible people are legion, and they buy silly books.

And such people don't discern between good and bad publicity. Just ask Marie Osmond.

Anyone who wants to understand why Fein would subject herself to lurid public scrutiny need look no further than Donny's little sister, who was once "a little bit Country" Now she's a little bit Publicity Addicted. Every time her career seems dead, Osmond makes the rounds of talk shows with her latest "painful" self-revelation. From crippling depression to the sexual abuse she claims to have endured as a teen, Osmond has spent the last few years keeping herself in the limelight through regularly scheduled self-exposure.

And Fein would do well to continue following in Osmond's footsteps. Right now, online bookseller Amazon.com ranks The Rules for Marriage 1,183rd on its sales list. Marie Osmond's Behind the Smile: My Journey Out of Postpartum Depression is at number 126.

COPYRIGHT 2001 BPI Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group