27-year-old multi-hyphenate entertainer Keke Palmer is taking her viral Instagram comedy sketches to Amazon. Palmer has teamed up with Amazon Original Stories, an imprint of Amazon Publishing, to publish new short story series based on her original Instagram characters and sketch comedy videos.
A press release said readers and listeners will be able to download the collection as a Kindle eBook or as an Audible audiobook, performed by Palmer herself.
The idea for her comedy sketches was born nearly five years ago on Instagram. Her short binge-able sketches have amassed over 100 million views, with the headlining character, Lady Miss Jacqueline, gaining over 60 million views.
“What started as an Instagram sketch, led me to one of my most beloved characters, Lady Miss Jacqueline. She’s always been larger than life—and a huge symbol of the moment when I realized I wanted to create worlds for my audience to get lost in. In effect, she was the beginning of my production journey. The opportunity to share what makes her not only funny but important, is exciting!” said Palmer.
Palmer told Variety that Amazon shares in her plans for her sketches, and now she can co-produce her works with the giant media platform. The collection of comedy sketches will be published by Amazon Original Stories in fall 2021.
“The team at Amazon Original Stories and I have a shared vision and what they have already been able to accomplish pushes me to bring my best and then some. I can’t wait to together share a new side of Lady Miss, her truth, and comedy with the world!” said Palmer.
So far, she has tackled issues about class, race, femininity, and culture in her short stories and is thrilled to embark on this new phase with Amazon, exploring more themes that are more relatable to people growing up in this millennium.
“I think there are a lot of important themes that are going to be very relatable to the growing person in this millennium, and so I’m excited to see how they feel it’s expressed.”
Amazon Original Stories publisher Julia Sommerfeld said, “We are thrilled to team up with Keke to help expand her unique vision and an unforgettable cast of characters into a broader literary universe.
“We like to think of Amazon Original Stories as serving as a playground for an innovator like Keke, to bring her ground-breaking characters to life in new ways and to push the boundaries of storytelling.”
Palmer’s short stories, featuring illustrations throughout, will take readers and listeners into the “hilarious and fully realized world of her beloved characters, expanding on their backstories and building a plot that answers the most asked questions from her fans,” according to the release.
Readers and listeners are not going to get a new story each time but will get a different point of view each time from the same story, Palmer said.
