Dear Friends:

After nearly five years of research and writing, Man in the Music: The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson will finally be officially released in bookstores around the world tomorrow (November 1, 2011)!

My goal for this book was simple: I wanted to write about Michael Jackson, the artist. When I started the book in 2005, nearly every book that had been written about Jackson focused on the controversies of his personal life and were often covered in very reductive, superficial ways. That was what publishers were willing to publish and that, they assumed, was what audiences wanted to read. Even Michael Jackson's autobiography, Moonwalk, and collection of poems and reflections, Dancing the Dream, had gone out of print and could not be found in bookstores. I remember visiting my local Barnes & Noble in 2006. There were dozens of books on Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Kurt Cobain. But there was only one on Michael Jackson: Diane Dimond's exposé, Be Careful Who You Love.

I wanted to change that.

Michael Jackson loved books. Throughout his life, he visited bookstores and came home with stacks of books. He loved to study and learn from the greats he admired, from Chaplin to Disney to Michelangelo. He aspired to be studied and appreciated in the same way, to be respected as an artist, not a tabloid oddity.

It is my hope that Man in the Music will be a book that does that for Michael Jackson. He deserves it. He is, after all, one of the most culturally significant and artistically unique artists of the past century.

We've seen enough tabloid-style books make the bestseller list. Perhaps there are enough of us interested in the "man in the music" to prove that a book of substance can do it too.

Copies of Man in the Music are now available at your local Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. Please also check out the premier of a fan-organized effort I have endorsed called Pay Michael Forward to learn about contests, prizes and creative ways readers are sharing Man in the Music.

Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,

Joe Vogel

http://www.joevogel.net/a-note-from-joe

 

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Source: Deborah French / MJ-Upbeat.com