Right now we seem to be in the middle of something of a boom in the popularity of reading in the mainstream media and some authors are touted as celebrities as much as actors or musicians.

Personally I'm unsure as to what to make of this interest in the written word from my own point of view. I'm sure that most people, like myself, have pretty much always been readers of whatever genre of literature takes their interest and no matter whether the current infatuation with print endures of fades they will keep on reading and enjoying books for the rest of their days.

But what interests me as a writer as well as a reader is the fact that whenever the mainstream shows such an interest in an industry, that industry tends to see a sudden upsurge in profits and production followed by a slum afterwards.

It's always been the case that there are many writers hopeful of getting published, but is it the case that in the current climate publishers are desperate to rush into print books that follow the current trends? Are these authors going to be cast aside as the industry moves on? Is the rush to find the "next Harry Potter" potentially damaging to the wider credibility of the industry in the long term?

Will the trend for reading and all the reading groups and celebrity authors be good for the industry...or will we regret it in the long run?

I can't comment on the industry as a whole but I'd rather everyone was buying books than crazy frog ring tones. At least reading involves a certain amount of higher brain activity.

Originally posted by tim_rutter
I can't comment on the industry as a whole but I'd rather everyone was buying books than crazy frog ring tones. At least reading involves a certain amount of higher brain activity.
What's your opinion on the phenomenon of the cult popularity of certain titles that seem to sell and sell regardless of the actual quality of the writing that they contain?

Do people who read say Cathy Reichs or Dan Brown go on to read other more "sophisticated" novelists in the crime and thriller genres?

PS: Playing Devil's advocate here! :twisted:

Originally posted by Carmine
What's your opinion on the phenomenon of the cult popularity of certain titles that seem to sell and sell regardless of the actual quality of the writing that they contain?

Do people who read say Cathy Reichs or Dan Brown go on to read other more "sophisticated" novelists in the crime and thriller genres?

PS: Playing Devil's advocate here! :twisted:

Do those cult titles sell due to aggresive marketing? This is the only reason Harry Potter is so phenominally popular. As the crazy frog example proves you can sell anything with the right marketing campaign. I think that if the trend continues then smaller writers/publisers who can't afford to turn edinburgh castle into something from their book, will suffer - I think that is fairly inevitable.

I am speculating here - this is not something I've thought about before!

Originally posted by tim_rutter
Do those cult titles sell due to aggresive marketing? This is the only reason Harry Potter is so phenominally popular. As the crazy frog example proves you can sell anything with the right marketing campaign. I think that if the trend continues then smaller writers/publisers who can't afford to turn edinburgh castle into something from their book, will suffer - I think that is fairly inevitable.

I am speculating here - this is not something I've thought about before!
We see similar things happening in other industries. The world of film is dominated by Hollywood and though there are some titles that stand out as original and artistic, there are far more that are rehashes, remakes and sequels.

Every festive season you can guarantee that you'll walk into a highstreet bookstore and see new hardbacks by Kathy Reichs, Bernard Cornwell, Steven King, Dean Koontz, Terry Pratchett, Anne Rice and many more. While I wouldn't question that these are popular writers, I've always been interested by the fact that their new titles appear like clockwork in tune with the demand of the industry. Tolkien took more than a decade with LOTR, in the modern era he'd be f*cked to meet such stringent deadlines!

Another issue is the "Bestsellers" sections that most bookstores have close to the entrance. When I worked at a well known highstreet bookstore I was told by a colleague that rather than actually fill those shelves with what they sold the most of, the actual top ten ranking came direct from head office and relied more upon the number of advance copies the company had to shift than the number they had sold.

Originally posted by Carmine
We see similar things happening in other industries. The world of film is dominated by Hollywood and though there are some titles that stand out as original and artistic, there are far more that are rehashes, remakes and sequels.

Every festive season you can guarantee that you'll walk into a highstreet bookstore and see new hardbacks by Kathy Reichs, Bernard Cornwell, Steven King, Dean Koontz, Terry Pratchett, Anne Rice and many more. While I wouldn't question that these are popular writers, I've always been interested by the fact that their new titles appear like clockwork in tune with the demand of the industry. Tolkien took more than a decade with LOTR, in the modern era he'd be f*cked to meet such stringent deadlines!

Another issue is the "Bestsellers" sections that most bookstores have close to the entrance. When I worked at a well known highstreet bookstore I was told by a colleague that rather than actually fill those shelves with what they sold the most of, the actual top ten ranking came direct from head office and relied more upon the number of advance copies the company had to shift than the number they had sold.

This i probably indicative of a culture of "time poor cash rich" people. People want books to be quick and easy and to not have to do acres of research to find a good one, I guess. You can't judge a book by a cover, but you don't need to because you saw it on the telly is the philosophy. The market has changed so the marketeers have changed their approach. Books are being advertised as exciting snazzy products. I don't like this much!

Did anyone else actually know what the Da Vinci Code was about before they read it? When I heard about the concept I was immediatley put in mind of all the documentaries I had seen on the subject and got a bit fed up of people telling me about the "revalations" it dealt with!:thumbsup:

I remember an article in the Sunday Mirror a couple of years back. They sent the first chapter of Ben Elton's then latest book to a series of publishers/literary agents & tehy all rejected it as being not good enough to be pulished. Seems that celebrity sells, not quality. Skimming through the Writers & Artists yearbook some while back I noticed that there are a growing number of Agents who will only consider taking on manuscripts from already published writers, or 'famous' people.

I just saw Jodie Marsh's biography in Waterstones - says it all, really.

Originally posted by davem
I remember an article in the Sunday Mirror a couple of years back. They sent the first chapter of Ben Elton's then latest book to a series of publishers/literary agents & tehy all rejected it as being not good enough to be pulished. Seems that celebrity sells, not quality. Skimming through the Writers & Artists yearbook some while back I noticed that there are a growing number of Agents who will only consider taking on manuscripts from already published writers, or 'famous' people.

I just saw Jodie Marsh's biography in Waterstones - says it all, really.
Then you have the case of John Kennedy Toole who was turned down time and again and eventually took his own life believing that he was a failure at many things including the art of writing.

A few years later his relatives sent the manuscript of "A Confederacy of Dunces" to a publisher who finally agreed to take it on.

The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1981...now how rich is JK Rowling again?

Just to clarify my last post - they sent the chapter under false names so the publishers thought it was from a new writer.

Tolkien is an interesting case, as long before he'd even finished LotR he'd convinced himself that no publisher would want to publish it because of the size & the costs involved in the post war period. Allen & Unwin decided to go ahead & publish it because Rayner Unwin who was then running the firm (son of the owner Sir Stanley Unwin) thought it was a masterpiece - even though Rayner's opinion was that it would probably lose them a thousand pounds (& this was back in the mid fifties when £1000 was a hefty sum). Sir Stanley responded 'If you think its a masterpiece, then you may lose a thousand pounds.' & they went ahead & published.

Can you see any modern publisher saying that?

had no idea about da vinci code b4 reading it. new about da vinci. i found some of the revelations offering tenable conclusions to some things that have affected me over the years. i have since read all dan brown books - and all though aimed at the mass market i don find some of the background material quite enlightening in a conspiracy theory type of way.
try not to read "heavy" stuff 'cos its difficult to pick up the threads when you only read a page or two at a time.
can't abide Potter books, love Reichs,Cornwell,rankin and british historial factual books.

As long as novels have been popular there has always been a market for 'pulp fiction', 'bestsellers', 'penny dreadfuls', or whatever the contemporary term may happen to be. You only have to read some of Jane Austen's novels to see this in the society of her day; Northanger Abbey conatins some great satire on the craze for Gothic fiction during that period.

Mills & Boon have always been tremendously successful, so the current trend for chick-lit is not particularly new, it is just re-marketed and refocussed for a different generation of women. A lot of readers (most readers?) read for entertainment so will naturally go for what seems to have surface appeal. Likewise, the amount of books about celebrity lives must fulfill a need some people have to read more about their favourites.

It's not necessarily true that under-hyped books will not sell. Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and The White was published by an 'indie' house and has since become a big seller. And people still pick up more challenging literature to read. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a truly daunting book but has sold a lot of copies, and even A Brief History of Time sold in huge amounts. Others? The Life of Pi, Sophies World, Cloud Atlas (I've seen a lot of people reading this in particular).

I think that the hype is there to shift units, just as it does with music, but the hype is also misleading, as we all know that we read what we like just as we listen to what we like, and we don't all linger by the 'top ten' shelves.

Being optimistic I guess...;)

As a habitual reader I tend to demolish mounds of fantasy fiction which frequently doesn't reach the best seller listings. Also, in slightly more moderate quantities, horror and SF with the occasional general fiction, text book and auto/biography.
My opinion about the likes of Harry Potter is that it is encouraging children to read, which is a good thing.
It can take a lot of effort to find a genre to suit a person and if HP does it enough to get one child to read rather than spend a life semi literate, so be it.
The last few generations of children IMO have not been encouraged to read, too much TV and playstation, surely this is a bad thing given the reputation of education and attitude in young people these days?
Furthermore, I feel the same can apply to adults.
So, even if the product is mass marketed and even if JKR is writing to a formula, surely this is better than people not bothering at all.
(I am not implying that people who read are better, just that it is often an indicator of positive qualities and education).
I read some amazing books which involve some mental capacity and I read absolute trash, all of which give me some pleasure, either by challenge or by ease of consumption. While I might relax and read I feel stimulated because of it, happy to indulge myself in a favoured activity and very able to discuss my views and opinions on books and authors.
It's about time authors were commended and reading was exalted as the good thing that it is rather than a habit taken up only by students and 'those intellectual types'
I feel that the search for the next JKR or HP is also a good thing, rather than damage the industry, perhaps it is now giving more writers hope and more publishers scope to publish more diverse literature.
A good friend of mine writes and has found publishers more interested in recent years despite a long career in writing. He is a huge fan of HP and various others and feels inspired to write rather than be swamped in a failing industry.
For me, it enriches my life enormously and I feel reading is a hugely positive past time for any person, regardless of reason. I hope this is a positive move in leisure habits which will hopefully continue and provide new generations with a good attitude to books.

I read like a beast at the moment. I go through stages of reading 2/3 books a week and getting little sleep to not reading at all.

I have a bad habit of reading fantasy books before I go to bed and then not going to bed as I can't put it down.

It is good that reading seems to be a more popular pastime, but bad that publishing companies and in particular bookshops are becoming more and more "just like any other business". From what I gather this means less money and exposure for authors other than the select few who Waterstones choose to promote, and less variety in general within the industry.

Plus at the same time anyone and everyone, inspired by JK Rowling, is deciding they have a best-seller inside them, truth is most don't (and even if they manage to get published, again only the mega-lucky get rich off it: a group of authors worked out recently that they earn something like 2p per hour for their work).

A friend of mine is a well-established published author, and he said that his literary agent is currently receiving between 200 unsolicited manuscripts per week and 200 per day. And this just for one agent. My mind boggles.

i do feel that the pricing of "popular" fiction does increase their appeal to the masses. I paid £15 for each of Patricia Cornwells last 2 novels, to find them @ £2.99 paperback some 6 months later. If they had been £2.99 initially i would perhaps have considered additionla authors.

Originally posted by willman
i do feel that the pricing of "popular" fiction does increase their appeal to the masses. I paid £15 for each of Patricia Cornwells last 2 novels, to find them @ £2.99 paperback some 6 months later. If they had been £2.99 initially i would perhaps have considered additionla authors.
Let me guess, you bought the most pointless format that a novel has ever been published in, the huge lumping hardback edition?

Every xmas the new "bestsellers" (an aside: I love Bernard Cornwell, but when I got to the back of "The Last Kingdom" there was an advert for the next title in the series "The Pale Rider" calling it his new bestseller...despite the fact that it's not out until October, the presales must be through the roof!...and he's named the book after a famous Sheffield real ale, respect!) turn up in the form of these unwieldy and overpriced tomes that take up too much space on your shelves and require you to learn to drive and buy a hatchback just so you can take them with you when you leave the house. Plus they cost the thick end of a twenty pound note.

Six months later the trade paperback emereges for seven quid (and far less for a decent second-hand copy) with far more tasteful cover design and small enough to grace your pocket/handbag/rucksack/handkerchief on a stick.

What's the point of the ruddy harbacks anyway?

Originally posted by Carmine
What's the point of the ruddy harbacks anyway?
I think the point is they tend to be printed on better paper - mass-market paperbacks tend to be printed on low-quality paper which yellows, becomes brittle and eventually disintegrates. Hardbacks and trade paperbacks tend to be printed on acid-free paper which has a much longer life-span.

Some people like to build libraries that will last years, centuries even, and for them hardback is a better choice. Personally, I'm not very good at looking after books anyway (and I tend to chuck out all but my very favourites), plus I find hardbacks a lot more restrictive in terms of carrying and reading (not so easy to read on the tube), but I can certainly see a point of them, especially the really nicely bound ones which are starting to reappear in limited editions from specialist publishers.

There's also a matter of economics: publishing relies on a few best-sellers to subsidise a diverse market, many of which will make a loss. It's virtually impossible to predict beforehand which books will be the bestsellers (before the first Harry Potter book, I'm sure nobody knew with any kind of certainty that JK Rowling would be such a huge success). Today's cut-throat market which leads publishers and retailers to slash prices to £2.99 is actually bad for the book market as a whole, because it means that publishers have to concentrate on finding and promoting best-sellers, at the expense of diversity.

the only benefits to the hardback i feel is it's durability. i have a few conan doyle,dick francis type collections that do last longer.they also stack better on the shelf.
other than that i usually only buy them to get my hands the novels srtraight away.