Before her Model Talk audio podcast and before her petite modeling blogs which gives advice and tips to striving models, and before she wrote a whole book about the struggles of being a petite model, a year and half ago, in mid 2006, Isobella Jade was a struggling homeless-by-choice 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. Next, getting the book published is a story of its own.
At the time, Isobella, who honestly stands 5 foot 2 inches, 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 shoot she had with Braun Razor for their national ad campaign.
Her story is sort of a Sea Biscuit of modeling and one written for the underdogs. So without a clue of how to publish a book, Isobella went to the Internet with her 350 page Word document. She decided to randomly email MediaBistro.com and asked if they would be interested in her modeling story.The media and gossip site went wild with how she wrote the book at the Apple Store and soon Isobella started getting some buzz on her book before it was even published.
During this time she had gained a very strong web presence for a non-body author and striving short model, the Metro newspaper interviewed her, she had a lunch with 20/20 producer, a pre-interview for David Letterman. Print editorials in magazines nationally and internationally wanted to suddenly hear her story. She had a film option for her life rights and to save money on stamps Isobella used a website called Publishersmarketplace.com to email agents. After a couple months Isobella Jade a wonderful literary agent.
Yet instead she edited down the book to 250 pages and decided to self-publish through Book Surge, “I felt it in my gut that I needed my story told by the time I was twenty-five and to have this I had to end my contract with the agent,” without looking back.
To this day she is acting as her own publicist and promoting her own book which is now on Amazon and Borders.com. Isobella says, “Self promotion means skipping the middle man and approaching magazines, newspapers and other writers first hand and even though Myspace.” Her approach is very grassroots and inventive. We are happy she contacted us.
Isobella Googles other authors with similar writing styles to see what publications have written about them to get inspired and then Isobella approaches the editors and writers at these publications and asks them to consider her book too, 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 in height and might never be one, but she is using unconventional marketing to promote herself and her book about being teeniest model out there and a book to co-side. She also cold-emails editors 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 very used though. Over the past six years Isobella 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” are what she is selling now as a “body part model” and just as she markets her book she is also marketing her body. Isobella now runs three blogs 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
https://isobellajade.blogspot.com/2007/10/business-called-you-by-isobella-jade.html
Websites like WSJ.com, Yahoo, Advertising Age, Fashion Television, Media Bistro, Gawker, TheBookStandard, 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. The modeling hasn’t ended either. Despite her miniature status, she has done shoots for Time Magazine, Women’s World, Stuff magazine, Bon Appetit magazine and recently body doubled for Christina Ricci, but these resume highlights stem from her original gritty beginnings which are captured in her modeling memoir called Almost 5’4” when she was an amateur naïve curious nude model and launching into who she would be now.
Isobella says with a little grin, “I Googled the word model one day in 2001 and since then I have been a striving-trying-model, only now I am Googling to get my story told!”
Isobella Jade will be featured in the January 2008 issue of Mac Directory Magazine, and a commercialized edition of her book called Almost 5’4” comes out in 2009 through The Friday Project, and the raw edition of Almost 5’4” is on Amazon now. Isobella can be reached through her website at www.isobelladreams.com
