Saturday, 10 October 2009
Sofa Lit.
The international news wires were in a frenzy yesterday as the earth shattering news landed onto editors desks that an amzing announcement had been made. Fern Britton, Good Morning TV presenter and cellulite dodger had signed a seven figure deal with Harper Collins to write two novels. Apparently the first novel is about a young female journalist who gets to the top of her profession and then falls in love. 'It will touch the hearts of her millions of fans.' Said her new editor. And induce cardiac arrests in everyone else. I may be wrong, Fern may have hidden her literary talents under her capacious frocks but I can gaurantee that come publication day, her new book will stacked high next to the low calorie spread in every supermarket this side of Rockall. Good luck to her, I say, if she can command such praise and money, then I tip My hat. But what does it say of the publishing world that they are willing to invest such monies in a Sofa Sleb? Where are the editors with courage, willing to take a punt on a genuinely gifted and talented writer? Come to the Moose I say one and all.
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Who knows, she may turn out to be Rose Tremain but if she did her publisher will be as surprised as the rest of us because they didn't see or hear either did they.
ReplyDeleteThere is two ways of looking at it. Firstly to think of it as something other than an endevour of fiction; it is something to do with marketing perhaps, or fictionalised autobiography, or an extension of day time TV but it is a different endevour to that undertaken by say James Hawes or you for example.
Secondly instead of thinking about what it is it may be interesting to think about what it does when it appears in the world. With the sort of money HC are throwing at her there will be a massive marketing budget. Book shop space will be bought, other authors will get lost, other books pushed to the back. The book will have a £20 cover price but be on sale for £8 99 from day one, it will be thrust upon unsuspecting readers all of whom have had their doubts about Phillip Schofield for some time. Nobody will remember the story because the story will never be the point of the book.
Sorry the above comment got cut somehow and thus makes little sense (it may never have done to be fair) However in the interests of clarity the either that is unseen or heard in the first para refers to the writing or the story.
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