American true-crime writer Aphrodite Jones might be expected to know something about the strains of celebrity life. She not only covered Michael Jackson's 2005 child molestation trial, but published a book about it two years later.
Even so, the 50-year-old was surprised by the intense interest that her book, Michael Jackson Conspiracy, garnered following the pop star's death on June 25.
'Once he died, I got flooded with calls from China, Taiwan, all over Europe including Italy, Bulgaria, Romania ... the list goes on,' Jones says.
Book deals rolled in and translations of Conspiracy are being printed in various European languages. In Taiwan, Leeds Publishing released the Chinese translation last month to coincide with the cinematic run of This is It, the documentary about Jackson's rehearsals for his planned London concerts. On the mainland, China Translation and Publishing Corporation issued a version in simplified characters last week.
Jones has also been inundated in recent months with requests for interviews, and her e-mail, Facebook and Twitter accounts are choked with inquiries and messages from around the world.
'The pressure and attention I have now is just one iota of what Jackson had. I don't know how he managed to go through all this in his life,' she says.
