Sales of popular fiction may benefit literary authors
© Sanja Gjenero
Having a novel published is more challenging than ever before. Following the meltdown of the global economy, agents and publishers are seeking books with potential to become bestsellers, and not much else is getting a look-in.
“It is a tough market out there with trading conditions in freefall so we really have to feel very confident about placing a novel before we take it on,” says Catherine Pellegrino of Rogers, Coleridge & White Literary Agency.
In February the BBC news channel website uploaded a story about the increasing competitiveness of the publishing sector, stating: “More than 200 million books were sold in the UK in 2008, but both the types of books sold and the way people buy them are changing.”
Books written by or ghost written in the name of celebrities are increasing the big sellers, apparently to the detriment of more literary efforts. But according to The Bookseller’s Neill Denny, this may not be the case.
“Some people are buying Katie Price and some people are buying Ian McEwan and Katie Price’s profit may well be helping the publisher who publishes Ian McEwan or the next Ian McEwan.”
If this is true, then when it comes to blockbusters such as J K Rowling’s Harry Potter series and bonkbusters by the likes of Jilly Cooper and Joanna Trollope may in fact be saving the more serious, more writerly works from extinction by ploughing profits into publishing houses that might otherwise have to fold.
As author Susan Johnson says: “For every story you hear about a first-time author landing a million pound advance there are 3,000 more authors out there lucky to be scraping a living.”
And it may be thanks to popular fiction those 3,000 authors are managing to scrape a living at all.
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The idea that the kind of books I wouldn’t read myself in a million years are bolstering up the publishing industry so that more original writers might get a look in, is very heartening, so I’m going to believe it for a while!