Just in time for Mother’s Day, Fox Books is launching Love, Mom: Inspiring Stories Celebrating Motherhood, (April 16) another FOX on-air-personality-authored book designed from inception to follow eight of its nine predecessors onto the New York Times bestseller list.
Fox Books, first launched in 2021 by pairing the media company with publisher HarperCollins, and its titles are market-researched to the hilt. Fox News talents are matched with can't-miss themes centered on patriotism, faith, and family. Then their books are promoted across every FOX platform including broadcasts, streaming shows, podcasts, and live events. (FOX and HC are both owned by companies controlled by Rupert Murdoch).
Love, Mom author Dr. Nicole Saphier, mother of three and an associate professor in radiology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College, entered the Fox News universe in 2018 as a contributor on medical and health policy, and opinion. Her previous books were on policy and politics with other publishers, but with Fox Books she zeroes in on family and faith. Love, Mom introduces 15 first-person narratives of women who describe their joy in motherhood moments great and small, but spare little of their challenges in their 10-page essays that also recount miscarriages, divorces, deaths, and struggles to maintain both family and careers while battling cancer.
"I spoke with people I felt a personal connection with and I told them, 'I need you to be raw and put your true self down.' We all go through hard times and I wanted readers to know they are not going through it alone," Saphier told PW. "I go through my daily life wanting to be honest with people. If you paint a rosy picture all the time, that's dishonest."
Eight of the voices in the book are from Fox News anchors and contributors: Ainsley Earhardt, Rachel Campos-Duffy, Kayleigh McEnany, Janice Dean. Martha MacCallum, Jennifer Griffin, Sandra Smith, and Carley Shimkus. Saphier also includes former patients who are cancer survivors, mothers in military families, and two moms drawn from more than 120 submissions from FOX News viewers who responded to a public invitation to women to write in about why their own mothers were extraordinary.
Love, Mom is divided into five themes—resilience, faith, valor, purpose, and acceptance. It begins with her own experience when she was pregnant as a high school junior at 17. Saphier went on to rear her son, move through college and medical school to become a radiologist and breast cancer specialist, marry, and have two more children, all while buoyed by the support of her own mother and her faith in God along the way.
"I never lost the overwhelming feeling that even though some things are beyond my control, I am not lost in the universe. God is guiding my way," Saphier said. So, she told PW, it was important to include a nine-page section midway through the book with 44 quick hits of Biblical inspiration and contributors' advice. Feeling overwhelmed? Saphier cites Matthew 11:29-30 "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Need to welcome help? Jennifer Hegseth, an on-air host and mother in a blended family, shares a quote from Dr. Wayne Dyer she keeps taped to her cabinet at eye level that says, “Good morning, this is God, I have it all under control. I do not need your help.”
The book, meanwhile, is going to get all the help that comes with every Fox News book title. According to HarperCollins, the imprint has sold 2.5 million copies across all formats of its previous titles. Shannon Bream, anchor of FOX News Sunday and chief legal correspondent for the network, accounts for one million of all those sales with her 2021 hit Women of the Bible Speak, and two sequels.
The announced first printing for Love, Mom is 140,000 copies. Videos of Saphier discussing her book are already posted online such as one for Fox Business where she mentions a Barnes & Noble sweepstakes for people who pre-order the book.
April 15, Saphier will host Love, Mom: The Live Show with a studio audience and a real-time streaming on Fox Nation with four book contributors joining her to talk about their own moms, work-life balance, faith, and more. Then May 10, Fox Nation will premiere the Dr. Nicole Saphier Mother’s Day Special when she and guests — including Saphier's mother — will address building a strong family while being "challenged by modern society," according to the company.
"There is a synergy across our brand ecosystem to get the message across and to serve our audience," Jason Klarman, the chief digital and marketing officer at Fox News Media said. Before moving up to that title last fall, Klarman was the executive v-p of marketing for Fox News Media and oversaw the launch of FOX Books.
Klarman works for Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News Media who established Fox Books and consults with HarperCollins on pairing authors and topics they can address with authenticity. They keep track of publishing trends such as titles in self-help and in spirituality and look for ways to tie these to a "deeper richer experience with the brand" through books.
"We speak to topics the Fox News audience cares about," said Klarman. "At book signings, we see the relationship with the audience and the personalities and the brand is meaningful. It's powerful. It's emotional. It's personal."
—With reporting contributed by Emma Wenner
