AND AS IF BY MAGIC...

Whatever happened to resigning from your job and spending a couple of weeks wanking and eating pot noodles?
Mark Frith resigned from Heat magazine about 20 seconds ago and already the announcement of the forthcoming serialization of his diaries has landed in my inbox...
HEAT EDITOR MARK FRITH QUITS TO PUBLISH THE INSIDE STORY OF THE CELEBRITY DECADE:
'THE CELEB DIARIES – TEARS, TANTRUMS AND EXCESS’

LONDON: Thursday 28th February 2008: Mark Frith, one of the most successful magazine editors of the last decade is to step down from editing celebrity gossip bible Heat, having landed a book deal with Ebury Press.

The multi award-winning editor took over the helm at Heat in January 2000 and took the magazine from imminent closure to one of top ten best selling magazines in Britain. He has been credited with turning it from a unisex entertainment title into a celebrity magazine for women. Sales when he took over were under 72,000 an issue and now exceed 500,000 copies every single week.

Frith's book deal was struck by the London office of international talent agents William Morris Agency who secured the deal with Ebury Press, publishers of the highly successful Piers Morgan books The Insider and Don’t You Know Who I Am.

Celebrity is the decade's biggest obsession. And Frith has had a ringside seat with unprecedented access to some of the biggest stars and most sensational stories of recent years. Now, for the first time, he's opening up his diaries.

Addictive reading, this is the story of the inexorable rise of this thing called celebrity, crammed with previously unheard of stories about the likes of Victoria and David Beckham, Jude Law, Amy Winehouse, Take That, Geri Halliwell, Jonathan Ross, Ewan Macgregor, Will Young and many, many more. Then there was the row he had with Gordon Brown at Downing Street…

Heat was there for the incredible rise and fall of Big Brother, and started the Size Zero debate. Tony Blair even agreed to appear topless in their pages. In green rooms and at parties celebrities have confided in Mark, hurled abuse at him and have been highly indiscreet in his presence.

The Celeb Diaries is the exposé of the celebrity world of the noughties.

Jake Lingwood, Publisher at Ebury Press said “The celebrity culture that Heat kick-started has become so dominant that the inside track on how it came about, what deals were struck, and who said what to whom, is a brilliant media story. The public are going to be fascinated to hear about what really goes on in the celebrity game.”
The Celeb Diaries will be published this autumn and is one of the publisher's priority titles for Christmas 2008

Frith has picked up pretty much every British magazine publishing award going including the Mark Boxer Award for outstanding achievement in UK magazines from the British Society Of Magazine Editors. He has won eight other major awards including PPA Editor Of The Year twice and PPA Magazine Of The Year, twice.

Frith and his team launched heatworld.com last year (which is exceeding all targets) and heat radio, relaunched last year, has seen its listening hours leap by 57% year on year.

Mark is a successful broadcaster and media pundit. He presented Liquid News on the BBC THREE for a year and is a regular contributor to The Apprentice: You're Fired, Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two and on Radio Two's Steve Wright in the Afternoon.

HM VERDICT: THIS WILL BE AN ACE BOOK. WE WANT THE INSIDE ON HARVEYGATE!
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