Hi all,

Wanted to share a brief update on our book project, Make the House Shake: The Rise of Prince, 1958-1988. Although Alex Hahn and I still have work to do, we are getting very close to the pre-ordering phase of the book. We are in the final stages of preparing the cover, as well working on a formal announcement of the book.

This book will cover Prince's life from 1958 through 1988 in more detail than ever before. In addition to adapting material from Alex's previous book Possessed, the book contains a massive amount of new material and information. It will also contain a 50-page section on the period from November 2015 through April 2016 and bring together all of the threads of what happened during that time.

We have a Facebook group, "Make the House Shake," that has been incredible in supporting our efforts. Many members are actively making contributions to our work, including research, contacts, observations, fact-checking and last but not least - emotional encouragement! We welcome all of you to join us and have been overwhelmed at the knowledge and generosity of our fellow Prince fans. To say that the book will be better for this is a great understatement. We'll be back with more updates soon.

Redirected here:
http://prince.org/msg/7/438065

LauraTiebert said:

Thanks to everyone and YES - we are cranking out the pages. You can look forward to a substantial volume!

We'll be back when the book launches for pre-order and will supply a link then, with pricing and all the specifics.

LauraTiebert said:

Hi all,

Wanted to share a brief update on our book project, Make the House Shake: The Rise of Prince, 1958-1988. Although Alex Hahn and I still have work to do, we are getting very close to the pre-ordering phase of the book. We are in the final stages of preparing the cover, as well working on a formal announcement of the book.

This book will cover Prince's life from 1958 through 1988 in more detail than ever before. In addition to adapting material from Alex's previous book Possessed, the book contains a massive amount of new material and information. It will also contain a 50-page section on the period from November 2015 through April 2016 and bring together all of the threads of what happened during that time.

We have a Facebook group, "Make the House Shake," that has been incredible in supporting our efforts. Many members are actively making contributions to our work, including research, contacts, observations, fact-checking and last but not least - emotional encouragement! We welcome all of you to join us and have been overwhelmed at the knowledge and generosity of our fellow Prince fans. To say that the book will be better for this is a great understatement. We'll be back with more updates soon.

Cool, but I'm somewhat confused: 1958-1988 then 2015-2016?

What happens to 1989-2015? Is this book the first in a series?

Sure -- What the book consists of is a 50-page prologue detailing the events of November 2015-April 21, 2016. Then, with Chapter 1, we delve into Prince's life from his birth (and actually, going back in time to share information on his family history), and progressing through his first 30 years, concluding in 1988 with the Lovesexy era.

The book adds a significant amount of new material while also incorporating and updating material from the "Rise" section of Alex's previous book, Possessed. We expect this book to be about 400 pages.

As to future volumes covering the years after 1988, we've discussed it but there are no concrete plans. I think we both need to take a breath before considering what's next!

Does that help?

We appreciate you both, Laura. After you all get the much needed rest, I hope you do tackle the years after 1988. Take care!

It's shocking how many posthumous books are out there!

.

The only two worth getting are also official. One by Mayte Garcia and the other by Steve Parke.

.

NorthC said:

It helps, but it doesn't make me feel good, because it means we'll be reading the same old story about Prince's glory years once again while the music he made afterwards is completely ignored. In other words, old wine in a new bag. Sorry if I'm a bit harsh, but so far Matt Thorne has been the only one who has tried to cover Prince's entire carreer. [Edited 1/25/17 11:33am] [Edited 1/25/17 11:35am]

I feel the same. Of course any new fact uncovered regarding the first decade will be welcome, however I am sick to death of reading the same stories over and over, and the amount of details we have about the first decade of Prince's career is becoming ridiculously high while the next 28 years are being as ridiculously ignored by biographers and journalists. Even in the press and podcasts, we're getting like 600 zillion interviews of André, Dez, Matt or Susan and much fewer from later associates.

As someone who has an equal interest for each and every part of Prince's career, I find this very sad, so I could only encourage you and Alex to follow-up and make another book for each decade, even if you guys need a few years' break between each book.

Nevertheless, I am likely to purchase this new book if it does indeed reveal new information, and I am grateful for the effort.

databank said:

NorthC said:

It helps, but it doesn't make me feel good, because it means we'll be reading the same old story about Prince's glory years once again while the music he made afterwards is completely ignored. In other words, old wine in a new bag. Sorry if I'm a bit harsh, but so far Matt Thorne has been the only one who has tried to cover Prince's entire carreer. [Edited 1/25/17 11:33am] [Edited 1/25/17 11:35am]

I feel the same. Of course any new fact uncovered regarding the first decade will be welcome, however I am sick to death of reading the same stories over and over, and the amount of details we have about the first decade of Prince's career is becoming ridiculously high while the next 28 years are being as ridiculously ignored by biographers and journalists. Even in the press and podcasts, we're getting like 600 zillion interviews of André, Dez, Matt or Susan and much fewer from later associates.

As someone who has an equal interest for each and every part of Prince's career, I find this very sad, so I could only encourage you and Alex to follow-up and make another book for each decade, even if you guys need a few years' break between each book.

Nevertheless, I am likely to purchase this new book if it does indeed reveal new information, and I am grateful for the effort.

Thanks for the responses, and encouragement. I wanted to tell you guys a bit about the genesis of the new project. It somewhat emerged from many people wanting to buy Possessed and not wanting to pay $300.00. it went far beyond that initial intent as Laura and I worked to update the book -- first in wanting to do a detailed account of Prince's last year, and then in a much-needed revisting of Prince's very early years, and how they formed his psychology. The beginning and the end of the story are really the most important in understanding the whole picture, in my view.

I did come to feel, in researching the early years, that just about everything that has been written -- including in my first book -- was missing key information about the formative years. Filling in those gaps has been fascinating -- and a massive task.

The other major goal was to tell the entire story of the period we are covering in a clear and linear fashion. I felt, with great respect to Matt Thorne and Ronin Ro, that they took a discursive approach that sort of jumped around -- that has its merits, but so does a linear, non-digressive narrative.

I hope that those who are the hardest core fans, and who have read other books about these years, will be patient with us, and recognize that we are trying to create a book that will appeal to the most serious fans -- and which contains granular information, including new information -- but also trying to reach people who have read previous books.

Finally, I think Laura and I have felt compelled to create as accurate as possible historical record, something that can used and consulted for a long time to come.

We are above all trying to do our best and the support of people in the Prince community is a huge part of what sustains us.

I'm looking forward to reading it but I will also endorse other comments made here...
.
1988 onwards is when things really became interesting (and increasingly mysterious) in Prince's world / psyche.
.
We hear little snippets of gossip about the 90s and beyond, and there is a great deal of mythologising, obfuscation, or plain refusal to acknowledge the things that were going on with him during those years...I, for one, find them fascinating.
.
Perhaps it's too much of a challenge for you, Alex and Laura? I guarantee, however, that you'd be filling a real gap in the market if you pursued those years with the zeal you have his earlier ones...

.

darkroman said:

It's shocking how many posthumous books are out there!

.

The only two worth getting are also official. One by Mayte Garcia and the other by Steve Parke.

.

Have you read the one by Mayte? The book is not out yet so how do you lnow it is worth anything.

Dibblekins said:

Dibblekins said:

I'm looking forward to reading it but I will also endorse other comments made here...
.
1988 onwards is when things really became interesting (and increasingly mysterious) in Prince's world / psyche.
.
We hear little snippets of gossip about the 90s and beyond, and there is a great deal of mythologising, obfuscation, or plain refusal to acknowledge the things that were going on with him during those years...I, for one, find them fascinating.
.
Perhaps it's too much of a challenge for you, Alex and Laura? I guarantee, however, that you'd be filling a real gap in the market if you pursued those years with the zeal you have his earlier ones...

.

Exactamundo.

We already have Per Nilsen's excellent DMSR: The First Decade, so a follow up of sorts of that would have been ideal.

Kara said:

Dibblekins said:

I'm looking forward to reading it but I will also endorse other comments made here...
.
1988 onwards is when things really became interesting (and increasingly mysterious) in Prince's world / psyche.
.
We hear little snippets of gossip about the 90s and beyond, and there is a great deal of mythologising, obfuscation, or plain refusal to acknowledge the things that were going on with him during those years...I, for one, find them fascinating.
.
Perhaps it's too much of a challenge for you, Alex and Laura? I guarantee, however, that you'd be filling a real gap in the market if you pursued those years with the zeal you have his earlier ones...

.

The second half of Possessed covers 1989-2001, and a build out/substantial update of that material would also be warranted. With all of this said, and at the risk of descending into whining, accomplishing what we have done with the current book has taken a massive bite out of our incomes, family lives, etc. We are self-publishing the book, and it's a labor of love. That's why the support of serious fans will be key to the success of the book. We are at a minimum hopeful that we don't get too much vitriolic criticism, and we hope that people will back us up as a means of supporting efforts to recount Prince's life. If we get a lot of reviews from hardcore fans complaining about a lack of "new" material, it will be much less likely that more casual and younger fans, who may not know much about Prince but could benefit from learning, will ever pick up the book. Whatever support that we get from serious fans will have a huge impact on the project.

We hope to have more information and hopefully a formal announcement soon.

Thank you guys.

AlexHahn said:

Kara said:

Dibblekins said:

The second half of Possessed covers 1989-2001, and a build out/substantial update of that material would also be warranted. With all of this said, and at the risk of descending into whining, accomplishing what we have done with the current book has taken a massive bite out of our incomes, family lives, etc. We are self-publishing the book, and it's a labor of love. That's why the support of serious fans will be key to the success of the book. We are at a minimum hopeful that we don't get too much vitriolic criticism, and we hope that people will back us up as a means of supporting efforts to recount Prince's life. If we get a lot of reviews from hardcore fans complaining about a lack of "new" material, it will be much less likely that more casual and younger fans, who may not know much about Prince but could benefit from learning, will ever pick up the book. Whatever support that we get from serious fans will have a huge impact on the project.

We hope to have more information and hopefully a formal announcement soon.

Thank you guys.

Oh BTW will it be available as a ebook? I live in China and therefore purchasing ebooks is easier for me than physical books. I can of course always order a physical on Amazon and have it delivered home and get it when I go back on holiday, but ebooks are just plain simpler for some of us

Dibblekins said:

I guarantee, however, that you'd be filling a real gap in the market if you pursued those years with the zeal you have his earlier ones...

.

.

Oh please, even on this site there's like only a dozen people who bother to discuss these kinds of books.

Laura/Alex

I'm looking very forward to this...to think there will be 400 pages spent on the early period is exciting to hear. I am happy you are delving into what formed this man. I often have wondered why he has not mentioned his mother much over his career....at least, it has been limited. There must be something more happening...

I have collected so many stories since that tragic day of his passing and i would imagine associates of his would be more willing to talk now...in fact, I would think his old friends would possibly find it a relief to talk about him and help them mourn.

So, I salute your committment and sacrifice to get this book done.

tx

RB

BartVanHemelen said:

Dibblekins said:

I guarantee, however, that you'd be filling a real gap in the market if you pursued those years with the zeal you have his earlier ones...

.

.

Oh please, even on this site there's like only a dozen people who bother to discuss these kinds of books.

I think Dibblekins was suggesting there is a gap in the market for books covering the later years - and I believe that is true.

It's got nothing to do with how many people on this site discuss the books. It's about how many read them. I have rarely discussed here any books on Prince over the years, but I probably own every biogrpahy out there.

leecaldon said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Oh please, even on this site there's like only a dozen people who bother to discuss these kinds of books.

I think Dibblekins was suggesting there is a gap in the market for books covering the later years - and I believe that is true.

It's got nothing to do with how many people on this site discuss the books. It's about how many read them. I have rarely discussed here any books on Prince over the years, but I probably own every biogrpahy out there.

Very good point...I too own pretty much every book/bio. Like many, I have collected my own huge listing of stories of Prince through contacts. I think it would be a shame if a 2nd book was not written about the years following 1988.

Wowie zowie, let's hope this time it's an honest book

leecaldon said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Oh please, even on this site there's like only a dozen people who bother to discuss these kinds of books.

I think Dibblekins was suggesting there is a gap in the market for books covering the later years - and I believe that is true.

It's got nothing to do with how many people on this site discuss the books. It's about how many read them. I have rarely discussed here any books on Prince over the years, but I probably own every biogrpahy out there.

Thank you. Yes, that's exactly what I was saying...Not sure what Bart's comment had to do with the price of bacon but, oh well!

I’m sure Alex and Laura won’t mind me saying, but I’ve been helping out a bit with music resource, fact checking and proofing.

It’s not my place to reveal the exact context of their work, but from one fan to others, I can assure you this update to Possessed in no mere bolt-on to rush something out; much like we’ve seen in the market in the last six months.

Had Alex wanted to cash in, he had far easier options; simply commissioning a reprint last year. He wrote various draft epilogues that could have simply been slotted into a re-release on the quick, but I think he realised that he wasn’t doing himself, or Prince, justice.

Once he got digging, and crucially, when Laura came on board, a serious update ensued.

Like I said, it’s not my place to give details of their work, but from the elements I have seen, it adds an excellent new layer of detail, context and history to the years already covered. It’s certainly got plenty of new source material. Laura has dug deep.

I’ve read all existing publications and loved some (Dave Hill for example), but I think this book will add a new layer to an already well trod story. It goes further in understanding where Prince came from, to better understand where he went.

I hope the finished product will still divide opinion, as the level of honesty in the first version was refreshing.

I agree that a comprehensive book covering the 1996-2016 would be warmly welcomed, but it is also the hardest to research, due to the locked down nature of Prince’s life in that period and multiple methods of output. It would need serious investment by publisher and /or author to do it justice.

AlexHahn said:

Kara said:

Dibblekins said:

The second half of Possessed covers 1989-2001, and a build out/substantial update of that material would also be warranted. With all of this said, and at the risk of descending into whining, accomplishing what we have done with the current book has taken a massive bite out of our incomes, family lives, etc. We are self-publishing the book, and it's a labor of love. That's why the support of serious fans will be key to the success of the book. We are at a minimum hopeful that we don't get too much vitriolic criticism, and we hope that people will back us up as a means of supporting efforts to recount Prince's life. If we get a lot of reviews from hardcore fans complaining about a lack of "new" material, it will be much less likely that more casual and younger fans, who may not know much about Prince but could benefit from learning, will ever pick up the book. Whatever support that we get from serious fans will have a huge impact on the project.

We hope to have more information and hopefully a formal announcement soon.

Thank you guys.

Alex: I appreciate the sacrifices you and Laura have made thus far. I wish I knew about possibly donating in some fashion??? Yeah, I'll buy the book(s), but until it's released, you all need to pay bills. Was there a campaign for this project?

[Bait snip - luv4u]