When one thinks of reality TV stars, one doesn't usually think "masters of prose." But the best seller list is crawling with "Real Housewives," "Bachelors" and just about everyone from the "Duck Dynasty" clan.
Yet another bearded "Duck" star is coming out with a book this spring — Jase Robertson's "Good Call: Reflections on Faith, Family and Fowl," which follows in the footsteps of three Robertson best sellers. Even MTV's "Teen Moms" are getting in on the action. Kailyn Lowry's "Pride Over Pity," which comes out in April, is racking up orders on Amazon's presale list.
So, if you have dreams of having "best-selling author" attached to your name, all you need to do is flip a table in prime time, find a decent ghostwriter, and voila!
Here are some of reality TV's most successful scribes:
Teresa Giudice
"Skinny Italian," "Fabulicious," "Fabulicious!: Fast & Fit"
Giudice — the hot-headed, table-flipping "Real Housewife of New Jersey" who just pleaded guilty to fraud — has written a whopping three best-selling books. Famous for calling another cast member a "prostitution whore," Giudice gets a little help from writer Heather Maclean on her books.
Travis Stork
"The Doctor's Diet"
Stork is one of the few "Bachelors" who has reinvented himself on TV. In 2006, the ER doctor passed out roses on Season 8 of the ABC dating show — choosing schoolteacher Sarah Stone as his mate. But the pair broke up just weeks after filming the finale.Two years later, Stork was cast as the lead host on a daytime medical talk show, "The Doctors," which is still going strong. Today, Stork's nutrition book "The Doctor's Diet" is No. 5 on the New York Times' Dining best seller list.
Bethenny Frankel
"Skinnydipping," "A Place of Yes," "Naturally Thin," "The Skinnygirl Dish"
Frankel, one of the original "Real Housewives of New York," spun off into her own Bravo series, "Bethenny Ever After." The queen of capitalizing on her exposure, she's launched the Skinny Girl franchise, which includes alcoholic drinks, food and shapewear. She had a short-lived talk show. And, in her free time, she's penned four best sellers.Frankel tackled fiction with "Skinnydipping," a novel about a reality-TV personality (really stretching those creative muscles), doled out advice with "A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life," and dished recipes and diet guidance with "Naturally Thin" and "The Skinnygirl Dish."
Lauren Conrad
"L.A. Candy," "Sweet Little Lies," "Sugar and Spice," "The Fame Game," "Lauren Conrad Style," "Lauren Conrad Beauty"
Lauren Conrad has enough best-selling novels to make an MFA student weep. The bubbly "Laguna Beach" star shocked everyone when her first novel, "L.A. Candy," debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times best seller list in 2009 and stayed there for a month. Although Conrad insists the book is a work of fiction and not based on her own life, it's about a young woman on a reality-TV show. Conrad made "Candy" into a series with "Sweet Little Lies" and "Sugar and Spice." According to Publishers Weekly, Conrad sold more than a million books from that series in 2010.Her second YA series, "The Fame Game," launched in 2012.
"One of my biggest goals, especially with writing YA novels, is just to have people enjoy reading," Conrad, who "collaborates" on her books with Nancy Ohlin, told Entertainment Weekly.
Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi
"A Shore Thing"
Polizzi turned her drunken antics on MTV's "Jersey Shore" into a writing career. At age 23, she made the New York Times best seller list with her novel "A Shore Thing," a book about falling in love on the Jersey Shore, natch. Polizzi played coy when Matt Lauer asked if she wrote the book on her own."I did," Polizzi said on the "Today" show. "Because if you read it, you'll know [on] the first page that I wrote it. Cause, like, it's all my language."
Polizzi later admitted she had help from a collaborator, who polished such gems as: "Any juicehead will get some nut shrinkage. And bacne. They fly into a 'roid rage, it is a 'road' 'roid rage."
'Duck Dynasty' clan
"Happy Happy Happy," "The Duck Commander Family: How Faith, Family and Ducks Built a Dynasty," "Si-Cology"
Phil Robertson may not have actually ever read his own memoir, but hundreds of thousands of fans have. "Happy Happy Happy" debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times best seller list in May and spent months there. Robertson hasn't been shy about admitting his co-writer Mark Schlabach did the heavy lifting when it came to writing the best seller.
"I dictated it, why should I read about it? I'm sick of hearing those stories," Robertson told The Post last year.
And the controversy over Robertson's comments about "homosexual behavior" did nothing but help sales of this book. According to Publishers Weekly, book sales increased 86 percent in the weeks following the remarks.
Robertson's son and daughter-in-law, Willie and Korie Robertson, had a hit with "The Duck Commander Family: How Faith, Family and Ducks Built a Dynasty," which spent most of last fall floating on the best seller list, and his brother, Si, famous for wacky sayings, followed suit with his own successful memoir, "Si-cology." Willie, Korie and Si all co-wrote their books with Schlabach, as well.
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