A Petite Model Overcomes Her Size

New York, NY—Before her Model Talk audio podcast and before her blog and book, in 2006, Isobella Jade was a struggle petite model who had recently finished the first draft of her modeling memoir called Almost 5’4”, which she had typed at the Apple Store during a desperate time when she was without a computer of her own.

At the time, she was waiting to hear back on a fit modeling job at Teen Vogue and that is where her book ends. Her greatest feat at the time was a test shoot she had with Braun Razor for their national ad campaign, a shoot that involves her naked all day and then never did run after-all. So with her 350 page memoir she decided to randomly email Media Bistro.com and she started getting some buzz on her book before it was even published. She had gained a strong web presence, print editorials in magazines nationally and internationally and she had an option for her life rights and an agent within a couple of months.

Yet instead she edited down the book to 250 pages and decided to self publish through Book Surge, and to this day she is acting as her own publicist and promoting her book which is now on Amazon and Borders.com. It means skipping the middle man and approaching magazines, newspapers and other writers first hand and even though Myspace. Her approach is very grassroots and girl next door. She Googles authors with similar writing styles to see what publications have written about them to get inspired and approaches the editors and writers at these publications and asks them to consider her book, and it has worked. She recently was in a full page of the NYPOST Pulse because she had contacted a writer who wrote about a Supermodel. Isobella is no supermodel and might never be one, but she is using unconventional marketing to promote herself and her book about being the underdog.

She also cold-emails and isn’t afraid to make a phone call to Hearst. Her tactics have lead to a Page Six article and exposure that most would pay thousands for. Although self serving is something she is used too though. Over the past six years she has made a small business out of her small proportioned body, hustling work as her own agent as well most of time, and only recently the good jobs for a girl of her petite stature have come her way. Isobella recently made $1000 dollars for two hours of her time to shoot just one shot of her wearing a Guess Shoe for the Marshall’s fall ad campaign. Her body “parts” is what she is selling now as a body part model and as she markets her book she is also marketing her body. She now runs a blog on petite modeling and recently launched her audio podcast on BlogTalkRadio.com where she gives advice to the striving petite model or wanna-be internet model.

www.blogtalkradio.com/isobellajade
http://isobellajade.blogspot.com/2007/10/business-called-you-by-isobella-jade.html

For a first time author, websites like Media Bistro, Gawker, TheBookStandard, Fashion Television, Mac Life Magazine, have all followed her story. Still she is trying every day to prove that self publishing, self marketing and the Internet can work for the underdogs. Despite her miniature status, she has shot for shoots with Time Magazine, Women’s World, Stuff magazine, Bon Appetit magazine but these resume highlights stem from her gritty beginnings which are captured in her modeling memoir called Almost 5’4” when she was an amateur nude model. Isobella says with a little grin, “I Googled the word model one day in 2001 and since then I have been a striving model, only now I am Googling to get my story told!”

www.isobelladreams.com