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."

Comments

[skint writer]

that makes a lot of sense Maxine

Funny, I was browsing in 'The Works' earlier and noticed a lot of hard-covered celebrity biographies going for around £2.99

At the volumes they print them in, the cost of printing is a tiny percentage of the cover price.

I bet, even at £2.99, everyone in the supply chain is still making money.

After all, a book is only a hunk of processed wood pulp.

[Maxine]

Yes, Skint, would make a very cheerful, warming Christmas fire for the family to sit around -- and at 2.99 is probably cheaper than buying the firewood!

[Clare]

Aha, I see now...thanks Maxine. You've solved one of life's little puzzles.

[Maxine]

Yes, it does all make a horrid kind of sense, doesn't it, Clare? Of course, when the newspapers go bust too (via losing all their readers and advertising to online news, blogs and myspace), the publishers will have to think up a new strategy, won't they? Which will be, one hopes, publishing more good-quality books (maybe more on a POD business model as we were discussing on another post).

[Maxine]

(I meant YouTube, not MySpace, sorry -- all these imtitative-yet-silly names merge into OneSpace in my brain).

[James]

Some more on this topic here:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=8148