Commercial Break?
Can anyone explain the newspaper book-pages to me? I just can't figure them out. While page after page is devoted to non-fiction and supposedly "literary" novels, the best that more "commercial" works can hope for is a dismissive mention on a roundup page or, more often than not, being ignored altogether. This despite the fact that commercial fiction in general (and crime and thrillers in particular), accounts for the vast majority of UK book sales - just take a look at the Sunday Times bestseller lists and compare the numbers.
This isn't sour grapes - well not entirely! But I can't think of another industry in the world where the buying preferences and needs of such a large segment of the population are so completely underserved by the media. Just think for a second of the wall-to-wall coverage (good and bad) that overtly "commercial" rock bands and Hollywood films get, compared to the silent treatment afforded to, for example, Martina Cole's latest offering, despite her routinely selling 1m copies plus. Can you imagine the pages of Empire being devoted exclusively to documentaries and those beautifully shot European films where people smoke and argue a lot but basically nothing happens for 90 minutes? And yet that's exactly what it sometimes seems the newspaper Arts and Culture pages offer up on a weekly basis.
On one level, this does appear to be symptomatic of a certain form of the intellectual snobbery that afflicts the book industry in particular: the argument seems to go that anything mass-market must be by definition badly written, low-brow and derivative, otherwise people wouldn't be flocking to buy it in such numbers. Not only is this pretty insulting to the millions of us who buy these types of books (let alone the writers!), it also ignores the fact that there are plenty of so called "literary" books that are badly written, leaden-footed and, let's face it, just plain boring. It also fails to account for the quality of writers such as Le Carré or Thomas Harris (pre Hannibal Rising!) or the iconic cultural impact of James Bond which few "literary" books could ever hope to replicate.
But if it is intellectual snobbery, then what drives it? Are the editors of the book-pages frustrated writers content to snipe from the sidelines, or published authors who have seen their worthy 300 page dissection of an adulterous couple's inner monologue crash and burn, and therefore instinctively resent others succeeding? I doubt it.
Do they see perhaps themselves as the guardians of good taste, as a sort of filter protecting us from being corrupted by mass consumerism? It's true that the barriers to entry for writing a book are quite low (an idea and a laptop) and a lot more books are published than films released or albums made. But then getting published isn't exactly easy, as agents and publishers do act as a pretty effective screen. Besides, who made book-page editors judge and jury, able to decide on our account what we should be reading and what is and isn't worthy of commentary and review?
Maybe I'm wrong, but somewhere along the line the media (possibly aided and abetted by people within the publishing industry?) seems to have decided that that books aren't part of the entertainment industry, that they operate at a far higher plane than the rather unsavory commercial world that the other creative arts occupy. (Maybe it's something to do with writing - people get quite sniffy about plays too). And yet, depressingly unromantic though it may be to admit it, aren't books competing for people's attention, time and money as much as CDs, DVD and the latest Playstation game?
Believe me I'm not suggesting that all "commercial" books are well written or deserving of our attention, nor that all "literary" books are boring and don't sell - the truth is there are good and bad examples in both genres and as a French Literature graduate and avid thriller reader, I’ve seen my fair share of both! Nor am I saying that the newspaper book pages should simply follow the money and switch their entire focus to commercial fiction - there is a vital role to be played in helping shape opinion and guide us, given the sheer volume of books that hit the shelves.
I guess my fundamental point is that while some readers will only read "literary" fiction and others only "commercial", the majority of people are caught somewhere between the two and are open to a whole range of books, depending on their mood or the time of day or where in the world they happen to be. The type of book you take to read by the pool, for example, might be very different from the one you take on the Tube to work, or curl up with on a cold December afternoon. That has nothing to do about a book being "literary" or "commercial" and much more whether it is a good read, which is surely the ultimate yardstick by which all books should be measured.
Couldn't the book pages do a much better job of reflecting this diversity?
This isn't sour grapes - well not entirely! But I can't think of another industry in the world where the buying preferences and needs of such a large segment of the population are so completely underserved by the media. Just think for a second of the wall-to-wall coverage (good and bad) that overtly "commercial" rock bands and Hollywood films get, compared to the silent treatment afforded to, for example, Martina Cole's latest offering, despite her routinely selling 1m copies plus. Can you imagine the pages of Empire being devoted exclusively to documentaries and those beautifully shot European films where people smoke and argue a lot but basically nothing happens for 90 minutes? And yet that's exactly what it sometimes seems the newspaper Arts and Culture pages offer up on a weekly basis.
On one level, this does appear to be symptomatic of a certain form of the intellectual snobbery that afflicts the book industry in particular: the argument seems to go that anything mass-market must be by definition badly written, low-brow and derivative, otherwise people wouldn't be flocking to buy it in such numbers. Not only is this pretty insulting to the millions of us who buy these types of books (let alone the writers!), it also ignores the fact that there are plenty of so called "literary" books that are badly written, leaden-footed and, let's face it, just plain boring. It also fails to account for the quality of writers such as Le Carré or Thomas Harris (pre Hannibal Rising!) or the iconic cultural impact of James Bond which few "literary" books could ever hope to replicate.
But if it is intellectual snobbery, then what drives it? Are the editors of the book-pages frustrated writers content to snipe from the sidelines, or published authors who have seen their worthy 300 page dissection of an adulterous couple's inner monologue crash and burn, and therefore instinctively resent others succeeding? I doubt it.
Do they see perhaps themselves as the guardians of good taste, as a sort of filter protecting us from being corrupted by mass consumerism? It's true that the barriers to entry for writing a book are quite low (an idea and a laptop) and a lot more books are published than films released or albums made. But then getting published isn't exactly easy, as agents and publishers do act as a pretty effective screen. Besides, who made book-page editors judge and jury, able to decide on our account what we should be reading and what is and isn't worthy of commentary and review?
Maybe I'm wrong, but somewhere along the line the media (possibly aided and abetted by people within the publishing industry?) seems to have decided that that books aren't part of the entertainment industry, that they operate at a far higher plane than the rather unsavory commercial world that the other creative arts occupy. (Maybe it's something to do with writing - people get quite sniffy about plays too). And yet, depressingly unromantic though it may be to admit it, aren't books competing for people's attention, time and money as much as CDs, DVD and the latest Playstation game?
Believe me I'm not suggesting that all "commercial" books are well written or deserving of our attention, nor that all "literary" books are boring and don't sell - the truth is there are good and bad examples in both genres and as a French Literature graduate and avid thriller reader, I’ve seen my fair share of both! Nor am I saying that the newspaper book pages should simply follow the money and switch their entire focus to commercial fiction - there is a vital role to be played in helping shape opinion and guide us, given the sheer volume of books that hit the shelves.
I guess my fundamental point is that while some readers will only read "literary" fiction and others only "commercial", the majority of people are caught somewhere between the two and are open to a whole range of books, depending on their mood or the time of day or where in the world they happen to be. The type of book you take to read by the pool, for example, might be very different from the one you take on the Tube to work, or curl up with on a cold December afternoon. That has nothing to do about a book being "literary" or "commercial" and much more whether it is a good read, which is surely the ultimate yardstick by which all books should be measured.
Couldn't the book pages do a much better job of reflecting this diversity?
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