Student Signs Contract for Zit Book

Move over, Lisa Birnbach. Here comes a Dudley House junior with a how-to combat acne book that publishers think will match sales of The Preppy Hand-book.

This humorous guide covers zits, and has its blemish-free author Robert H. I. Stone '86 signing a juicy contract with Arbor House to have the paperback on the shelves by next August.

Modeled after best-sellers aimed at the booming young adult market, like the preppy guide and How To Eat Like a Ktd, Stone says he hopes Zit Wars will debunk "the myths and phobias on acne." The book also will offer an inexpensive acne-fighting regimen using over-the counter treatment.

After first peddling the book idea on his own and then enlisting the help of an agent. Stone received a contract promise from Arbor House publishers in August.

Says Arbor House Editor Ann S. Harris, "Its humor is the sort [young people] will respond to: blunt, fresh and down to earth." She adds, "We think it has a built-in audience."

Stone says pecuniary gains motivated him to write the 124-page book, but yesterday he would not specify the amount of the contract. The History major describes the writing advance as "pretty big, as trade paperbacks go."

He also wanted "to offer sound advice in a language that kids would want to read--all the books on acne are too technical and verbose."

An acne victim himself. Stone says he visited several dermatologists before clearing his complexion on his own. He claims his "treatment has a clinically proven 95 percent success rate," and to have "cured" himself, his brother, and his freshman roommate.

Stone, who took the semester off to complete the manuscript, will enlist the writing skills of his brother Webster A. Stone '84 and a friend on the Lampoon to do illustrations.

He plans to survey Harvard undergraduates about their perceptions of the causes of acne.

UHS dermatologists refused to comment on the idea of a humorous acne book, with a unit spokesperson saying "For the students that we see here, it's a very serious problem."