U Star Novels In the Media

It's all about you

Monday, June 4, 2012

Design your own T-shirts? So 1990s. The age of the web means the Age of Customisation, in which you can star in anything – movie posters, pop videos, even animated TV talk shows – for a price. Choose your vanity project, find an appropriate website and presto! you can order a movie poster of yourself standing beside Arnie and Sly in The Expendables, or create an avatar of yourself appearing on a Jay Leno-style American chat show.

But what could be more personal than being a central figure in your own romance novel – even a classic like Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice – in which your name, hair and eye colour, and dress are substituted for those of the main character? And why stop there – you can also substitute your partner’s name for that of your fictional love interest. Customised novels are
doing brisk business on the web, judging from the number of sites hawking their services: ustarnovels.com, yournovel.com, customizedclassics.com and booksbyyou.com to name a few.

A word of advice though: make sure your choice of character – particularly if it’s a classic – matches the mood of
your name. Count Dracula won’t carry quite the same horror cred if your name happens to be Bruce Simkins, and you
may wish to reconsider starring in Romeo and Gertrude.

GREG CALLAGHAN