Author And Toaster Oven - Same PR Strategy
I conducted my weekly skim of the New York Times Book Review on Sunday. Since a new issue of Entertainment Weekly didn’t land at my house on Saturday thanks to last week’s double issue, I had to focus on something else. One of the reviews was for It’s All Right Now by Charles Chadwick. The title of the review is called: The Untalented Mr. Ripple. You guessed it, the narrator in the book is Tom Ripple, so the editor thought this was a clever way of saying just how much the reviewer hated this book. Very subtle.
What’s interesting about this, to the extent anything actually is, is the idea of the publisher’s packaging of the author being more important than the work. He is 70 years old and a retired British civil servant. This is his first book and he received piles of money for it. The point of the review, in addition to its theory that this book is uninteresting and without any merit whatsoever, is that Chadwick is some kind of publishing invention. The review starts:
Publishers are vampires. Such is their hunger for fresh blood that almost every month brings the announcement of a ‘brave new voice in fiction.’ Where, readers might find themselves wondering, are the timid old voices in fiction? The answer arrives in the shape of Charles Chadwick.
I have to wonder about this theory of editors as creators of public persona. To the extent this practice exists, is it one of those things confined only to certain genres or, maybe, just to literary fiction. I try to imagine the romance publishers sitting in NY saying: gee, let’s throw heaps of money at this author we don’t know, one without any track record, in the hopes of making her into the newest thing no matter what the quality of the book is. Is that really how it works? Or, do all good editors, regardless of genre, fall for a project based on the perceived value of the project and not just because the unknown author has an interesting backstory, letting the promo stuff come after.
JK Rowling has an interesting personal story but the Harry Potter books probably don’t sell in the millions just because she wrote the first in a diner and while on the verge of complete financial ruin. Sure, this may help with the PR machine but that would only go so far if the books sucked. You’d think the publisher signing the check would know that. The reviewer’s idea of authors as commodities sounds like an overstatement, maybe even a misstatement. Wouldn’t be the first time I disagreed with a NYT reviewer. Not even the first time in this issue of the Book Review.
June 28th, 2005 at 10:58 am
You skim the book review? Later, we’re going to need to talk about that.
Some authors are commodities. And why shouldn’t they be? And why shouldn’t editors think of them that way, push them into that role? Publishing is after all a business with a bottom line
June 28th, 2005 at 11:16 am
Okay, I actually read it but I didn’t want the rumor to get around that I know about something other than EW.
I understand a publisher wanting to capitalize on an author’s backstory. I even get branding, ‘tho I don’t think it’s considered as a posititve thing outside of romance writing as it is inside. My problem is with the reviewer’s suggestion that this guy only exists as a commodity - not talent, just a good backstory. I’m all for promotion and hearing about an author’s personal story (ex. Eloisa James or JK Rowling), but having that be the sum total of what the author is as seen by the publisher doesn’t make sense. Why would a publisher want to create a one-book wonder where all that comes out of it is the sense that the guy’s a hack but - wow - look how interesting his life was. Since this guy is 70ish, maybe one book is it and the reviewer is right that this one stinks. But, for the rest of us, I’m thinking that without talent the commodity aspect probably isn’t enough to hook a publisher’s interest.
June 28th, 2005 at 12:39 pm
Oh HK, publishers don’t care about writers. They care about profits. And, no, I don’t believe they care about talent over commodity. Think about who publishers push and who they don’t push. Did you see multi-million dollar ad campaigns for any of the books up for last year’s National Book Award? No. Did you see that Hawaiian teenage who lost her arm to a shark on every channel promoting her book? Yes. See what I mean?
June 28th, 2005 at 9:14 pm
But the surfer girl will produce one book. The profits will be limited (unless she loses another arm or something equally horrid). The talented author can provide a lifetime of profits.
Sure, the bottom line is money. This is a business but the idea of pushing commodity only without any base talent - I can’t get there. Not for any long-term success. That’s just bad business unless a publishing house’s only global plan is to put out a series of books like the surfer girl. Then yeah, it’s commodity only for those folks and I’m likely not their target audience.