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So there has been some chatter on
the forums I frequent about Lauren Conrad publishing a novel (for those
not in the know, and I seriously envy you your ignorance, Lauren Conrad
came to fame starring first in the "reality" television series "Laguna
Beach" - about rich kids in California - and then graduated to her own
reality show "The Hills"). This
is a conversation that comes up every once and a while, and with sadly
more and more frequency, as celebrities, particularly those famous for
just being famous, announce they have just "written" and published a
book. Real writers, and by this term I mean it not as an offense but
quite literally, as very few of these celebrities write their own
books, get a wee bit annoyed by such announcements and of course enjoy
venting with one another online about it.Their reason for venting is straightforward:1.
It's darn hard to publish a book. People who have spent their lives in
the pursuit of such a goal, who have studied the craft in great detail,
who are just in general passionate about reading and writing, suddenly
discover some celeb who otherwise refuses to give a toss about books,
profiting from the same industry they diss*. What's more they are
getting published with relative ease. In fact often publishers will
approach these celebs to ask them to write a book. I mean, what real
author wouldn't love that? So of course there is just straightforward
jealousy and frustration from those people out there who have dedicated
their lives to writing and seeing their words in print.*
A sadly hilarious example of this is Kanye West dissing books as a
whole, while at the same time promoting his own (seriously, this quote
is from an interview about his book), talk about your serious oxyMoron:
"I
am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph . . . I am
a proud non-reader of books. I like to get information from doing stuff
like actually talking to people and living real life."2.
Celebs give the false impression that anyone can get a book published.
It does a great disservice especially to the reputation of the picture
book industry, because a lot of celebs have figured since they have
kids they must know how to write a picture book, plus they're like
super short, how hard can that be? It makes the public think, "Well how
hard can it be to write and publish a book?" It contributes to the
influx of queries that agents receive from people wanting to be
published who seriously should never ever have had even the idea of
writing a book in the first place. Besides which it kind of sucks that
so many people think the job that you sweat blood and tears over is
easy.3. The books
themselves wind up typically not being very good. Nor contributing
anything particularly meaningful to society (not that all books need
to, I'm just saying that celeb books rarely do this either). They come
out in a flurry of hype, sell tons, make the celeb even more money than
he/she probably needs, and then vanish off the radar just as quickly.However.I don't take issue with celeb books. Sure
I do find it somewhat sad that the public believes these celebs
actually write their own books (9 times out of 10 it's a ghost writer),
and sure I'd love it if my books would become instant bestsellers, and
being an actor I seriously would not mind taking a tour of the talk
show circuit.But
what authors, real authors, need to remember is that celeb books don't
take away shelf space from other books. I know it seems like they do,
but they really don't. They are their own market, and, what's more,
serve a very important purpose in the industry. They make money. They
make money predictably and quickly and by the truck load. And you know
what happens when a publishing house makes money? They feel more
financially secure. And what happens when they are financially secure?
They can afford to take risks.Celeb
books, as well as the Dan Browns and Stephenie Meyers of the world,
make it possible for smaller books, for more complex books, for, dare I
say it, innovative books, to get published. The publishing house is
willing to take a financial risk because it has a couple Lauren Conrads
in their back pocket.I
know a lot of people don't think original interesting books are being
published anymore. This is probably because all the attention goes to
these celeb like books and it's hard to separate the wheat from the
chaff. But the good stuff is out there too. Believe me, I've seen it,
I've read it. I've blurbed it. So
maybe the biggest issue with these books is that they do take away
attention from the good stuff. Even though now the good stuff is
allowed to exist thanks in part to the celeb books, it still can
flounder while once on the shelves - having been eclipsed by those same
celeb books. Maybe that is the greatest negative I can point out. The
noise from those books deafens us to the good stuff that IS out there.
And once and a while you kind of wish publishers would take a small
little interesting book and just promote the heck out of it like they
do with the guaranteed successes. And
there's the rub. Those two words: guaranteed success. Because truly, it
doesn't exist in the publishing industry. There is no path to
bestsellerdom, even being a famous person does not guarantee success -
there have been accounts of million dollar celeb book deals totally
flopping once the book hit the shelves. So it's pretty hard to imagine
a publishing house calmly willing to promote in the same manner a risky
complex novel by an unknown author, not when even some celebs fail.The
celeb books are the closest the industry is ever going to get to a sure
thing. That's why they aren't ever going to go away. And we real
authors need to just sit back, relax a bit, and accept that as truth.
And remember, behind most celeb books is a ghost author, and at least
he/she is getting some work out of it. That's something!Let's
try to turn the tables on the celeb books. Instead of being frustrated,
let's feel secretly smug. Let's thank them for getting us past the
bouncer, let's watch them dance with frenetic energy, the centre of
attention, until they burn out an hour later, and go off, limping
towards home. And then we'll slowly get up, smooth out the wrinkles in
our skirt, walk quietly to the middle of the room. And dance. And
dance. And dance. Until we're the only ones left on the floor. To mix my metaphors: Just keep swimming everyone. Just keep swimming.**I
am adding a caveat here, I realise that the term "real author" is
provocative, and to be honest it is meant to be. However there are some
celebs out there (typically they are not the celebs who are famous only
for being famous) who ARE real authors, who happen to be multi-talented
and actually write their own books, and are good at it. I'm talking
Julie Andrews here, and John Lithgow etc. I think we all know to which
celebs I am referring in this post.
5:08 PM
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