Linsanity Is Alive: Don't Stop the Presses

NEW YORK (TheStreet ) -- When Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks rose to fame in February, novelist and ghostwriter Alan Goldsher wasted no time putting together a biography on the NBA's newest sensation. His e-book Linsanity: The Improbable Rise of Jeremy Lin was published by Vook on Feb. 20.

But Goldsher made no plans to release a print version of his e-book in the U.S.

"This project was all about immediacy, and the speed of its production was what made it special," said Goldsher. "If we used a traditional print model for a Jeremy Lin bio, the turnaround time would have been, at the very least, three months, but probably more like six, so we'd be looking at an October release date."

Jeremy Lin

In this publishing climate, Goldsher said, "No editor would take a chance on that, especially in light of Jeremy's limited body of work."

Two publishers, however, took the chance.

Win Like Lin: Finding Your Inner Linsanity on the Way to Breakout Success by Sean Deveney will be available in print starting March 26. McGraw-Hill (MHP) says it is rushing the book to press to "meet the insatiable appetite of fans around the world hungry for everything Lin."

Deveney, who is also Sporting News' NBA writer, said he started working on the book in mid-February, but was making changes to the book right up to the deadline to reflect everything that has gone on in the past few weeks. "Jeremy Lin is someone I had been writing about a lot in my job, so it was easy to transition into gathering book material on him," Deveney said.

Hachette Book Group will also soon release its own spin on the Linsanity phenomenon. Jeremy Lin: The Reason for the Linsanity by Timothy Dalrymple is due in stores in May.

The question is -- will there still be a Linsanity to speak of two months from now?

"If you get on this kind of a 'lin-guistics' brand wagon, you need to capitalize fast because the public will tire of it quickly," said Jim Gregory, president and CEO of branding firm CoreBrand. He thinks publishing a Linsanity book is a huge gamble.

"First, you need enough material to write a book, then you need time to write, edit, design, proof and publish it," Gregory said. "That is only half the battle. You need to market and sell it, hoping there is still enough excitement around the person or event to constitute a marketplace."

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