Making A Supermodel

My daughter started modeling at 12. She went on to a Vogue cover and the Victoria's Secret runway, and at the peak of her career she was ranked the 13th top working model in the world.

I'm Janice - Sessilee Lopez's mother, and her momager. The one reading the contracts, sitting outside the castings, packing the bag, arguing with the school, and getting her home in one piece. Nobody handed me a map. I learned this business one expensive mistake at a time.

Making A Supermodel is the book I wish someone had put in my hands the day my 12-year-old told me what she wanted to be. It is not a fantasy about being discovered at the mall. It is a straight, practical guide from a mother who actually did it - including the parts nobody posts online.

This second edition has been rewritten from scratch. Fifteen years have passed, and three things changed enough to need saying again.

Discovery moved. Most first contact now happens through a phone, which has made scouting easier to reach and far easier to fake. There is a new chapter on how it actually works, and on telling a real approach from a fraud.

The body conversation got harder, not easier. The current numbers are worse than they were five years ago. The old body-image chapter has been replaced with a longer one built on what the data actually says.

And there is a danger I did not name the first time. The promise of a modeling career is one of the oldest recruitment tools there is, and it works precisely on the families who want it most. It was the hardest part of this book to write, and it is the part I would most want a parent to read.

Inside this second edition:

• How the business really works - agencies, commissions, and who actually gets paid
• How scouting happens now, and how to tell a real approach from a fraud
• The scams built to take a hopeful parent's money, and how to spot them
• What it costs, long before any money comes in
• Protecting her education, her body image, and her spirit
• Doing it as a single parent, and keeping peace at home
• A rebuilt international agency directory, verified agency by agency

If your daughter has the dream, this book tells you what that dream actually costs - and how to keep her whole while she chases it.