James Franco Signs Book Deal With Amazon

If you watch a lot of movies — or, ahem, The Oscars — then you probably know James Franco is a capable actor with a pretty solid career. If you also happen to read literary journals, then you might notice a short story writer also named James Franco, and it would be fair to believe that this is not the same guy who you watched saw off his own arm in 127 Hours.

Fair, but wrong, because these James Francos are one and the same. (Also, that guy falling asleep in your English class at Columbia, Yale, NYU, University of Houston and/or RISD? Yup, same guy.) And now the multi-talented Franco is taking the next step in his writing career — publishing a novel, according to The New York Observer.

Forgoing the traditional ink-and-paper publishing house, Franco has signed a deal to publish his novel Actors Anonymous — based on his life as an actor in Hollywood — with Amazon. It's the actor's first novel but his second book; a collection of short stories entitled Palo Alto was published by Scribner in 2010.

Perhaps Actors Anonymous will be good enough to boost Franco's reputation, which took a hard hit when an NYU professor sued the university, claiming he was fired for giving Franco a D after the busy bee actor skipped out on class.

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