Winners and losers

My friend James of New Tammany College sent me a link to an interesting article by John Crace on Comment is Free (Grauniad) on the issue of celebrity (auto)biographies. (See earlier post on Petrona and discussion in the comments to that post.) I was surprised to find the article interesting because my initial reaction was "yawn" - but it's a persuasive analysis of why these books get published even if nobody buys them (the article gives some examples of just how low some sales are). I recommend reading the article, but if you don't have time, here is an extract:

"Who cares if you've paid £200,000 for a book that only sells a few thousand copies if you've recouped most of your cash from a newspaper?

The real losers in all this are the readers. And not just because they already know everything of any interest before they get to page one. When a publisher hands over a large advance, it earmarks a proportionate amount of its marketing budget to selling the book. Celebs are the ones who are going to end up on chatshows and their memoirs will dominate bookshop displays, crowding out other authors.

This Christmas, most people will play as safe as the bookshop buyers and walk out with a Jeremy Clarkson or a Gordon Ramsay, happy in the knowledge it won't be them who has to read it. Chocolate used to be marketed on the myth that buying someone a box was a sign that you loved and cared for them. In reality, it showed that you didn't - or not enough to buy them something that requires thought. Celebrity memoirs seem to be working to the same principle."