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Business
50 Cent Builds on Business Empire with Deal for Hip-Hop Book Line
posted on Nov 16, 2005
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Rapper-turned-actor Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson will be launching a brand new imprint of street fiction called G-Unit Books. The new line of hip-hop novellas and graphic novels will feature 50's G-Unit members Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo, Young Buck and Olivia as characters.
G-Unit Books is a co-production with Simon & Schuster, specifically Pocket's Louise Burke and MTV Books' Jacob Hoyt (who published 50's memoir.) The imprint, which includes both novellas and graphic novels, will launch in 2007 with a novella by Nikki Turner, author of The Glamorous Life and A Hustler's Wife, will pen the line's first novella.
Pocket/MTV Books promised the venture would showcase "gritty" stories and cover much of the same terrain as 50 Cent's raps. "These tales will tell the truth about The Life; the sex, guns and cash; the brutal highs and short lives of the players on the streets," the publisher said in a press release.
50's autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens, spent eight weeks on the New York Times best-seller list and has sold more than 40,000 copies since its release on Aug. 9, according to Nielsen BookScan.
50 Cent has sold over 20 million records worldwide. His record-breaking debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin' has sold over 12 million units worldwide, with the largest debut in SoundScan history. While his sophomore effort, The Massacre, sold over 1.14 million copies in its fi rst four days of release, he has since become the fi rst artist to have four songs in the top ten of Billboard's Hot 100 since The Beatles in 1964.
His business empire includes: a record label (G-Unit Records, a division of Interscope Records), apparel/footwear ventures (G-Unit Clothing and footwear, joint ventures through the Ecko Clothing Company and Reebok, respectively), vitamin water (Formula 50, through Glacéau's Vitamin Water), watch line (G-Unit Watches, through Jacob & Co), and a video game (50 Cent: Bulletproof, through Vivendi Games). His future plans are to dominate the film and television worlds through two new G-Unit ventures in film and television...and his most prized project: the nonprofit organization The G-Unity Foundation, which aims to better the life of urban youth.
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