"Bestseller" bribery.

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"Bestseller" bribery.

Did anyone else fume over the article on page twenty-three of yesterday's Sunday Times? The one which revealed exactly how much the major booksellers demand from publishers for plugging books in their "Top tens" and window displays?
We all knew it went on, but the facts are still astounding - £10,000 (yes, four noughts!) for WH Smith's "Book of the Week" award.. £2,500 for Waterstones "Book of the Month".. thousands to be included in their "Top Hundred", and so on.
These chains, of course, stress that a panel picks the books and they then "approach" the publishers - presumably with palm outstreched. Quote - "no-one has ever refused." Amazing..
This, of course, partly explains why "personalities" get their faces everywhere: their publishers cough up and - hey presto! Yet another best seller! (Mind you, they've found the Titanic, they've found the Bismarck, yet no-one's ever discovered the faintest trace of personality in Delia Smith. Even so, I suppose that she's an improvement on that loud ugly @!*$ who disfigures the Sainsbury's ads.)
Final quote from Giles Gordon, of Curtis Brown ".. book sellers are basically blackmailing publishers. It stops good talent coming through." Ain't that the truth?

justyn_thyme
Anonymous's picture
Why should this practice stop good talent from coming through? All they have to do is pay the bribe for to get the good books displayed, rather than the bad ones. I do not condone the practice, but it is inevitable. The big grocery store chains have charged manufacturers for shelf space for years. Booksellers are doing the same. In theory, a publisher could somewhat bypass this via the internet, but relatively few people buy books via the internet it seems. My procedure is to look at the book in the shop, then see if I run across a copy at oxfam or camden market. If that fails and I really want it, I will usually buy via the internet.
andrew pack
Anonymous's picture
Justyn - I suppose it hinders new talent, because if you have to pay 10 grand to get sales, you need to be very confident that that author is going to shift 10-20 thousand copies. The best way, is to have the author as someone you already recognise. Like someone who was in a tv series, did one single and then turns up half the time for their West End show, writing an autobiography at the age of 23 !
Yank Donignacio
Anonymous's picture
Yah, I read Tim Allen's best selling autobiograpy -- crap to the core! Okay, maybe it wasn't THAT bad. He had some interesting things to say about women.
Tony Cook
Anonymous's picture
You want to see what WH Smith's charge to get a magazine displayed - or even stocked. It's outrageous and, of course, stops small independent magazine from coming through. these devices are undoubtedly there to gain control of the market. Look at how few British films get a decent showing at our own cinemas. The French have a far better system - homegrown films have to be shown at a proportion of cinemas and book stands have to stock all magazines. Don't know about books but I would imagine they have similiar rules there. it creates a diversity in society and stops big brother taking control. No bad thing. Come on you frogs!
Liana
Anonymous's picture
Jozef recently emailed me an interesting article on this theme...I've lost it...Jozef? Do you still have it???
funky_seagull
Anonymous's picture
mmmm... I guess it all works the same way as the music industry and with art too... we need to deconstruct manufacturing... however you do that. Start an underground book scene or something. Re-arrange the money making values... twist it round a bit... shake it up.. create a new vibe... de-construct it all and confuse the fatcats with our raw unified energy. Build a new scene after all we are the backbone of it... we the unseen creators of language... we are the life and soul of it... we're the story tellers and the poets.... Revolutionise the money making vibe.. which is going down anyway.. anyone can see that mammon is a sinking ship... its only a matter of time before it collapses becomes nothing but empty dust.. Thats why the world is so crazy at the moment. Money is in its death throes. Its going down.. an I don't wanna drown... Then what are people gonna do when theres no more money? You can't eat money... change is gonna hit us eventually... jus got to be patient... and be prepared. Nows the time to follow your heart... wherever it may lead you... don't get caught out by the illusion... be a warrior... @!#$ money!
mississippi
Anonymous's picture
Ok, from now on if anybody wants me to take the piss out of 'em it's gonna cost! A quick comment: Two cherries A paragraph: A pound of cherries A whole diatribe: A Harrods Christmas hamper and half an hour in the cupboard with Emily!
Andrea
Anonymous's picture
Bit I don't wanna go in the cupboard with Emily!
funky_seagull
Anonymous's picture
I can't help it, these spontaneous paragraphs of diatribe jus pop out... money is a disease... see I can't help it.. my fingers are possessed by money is a.. argh stop IT! am I mad? hey man I got a cherry tree growing over my garden fence. Every morning it drops cherries on my pathway... where do I haf to mail my pound of cherries too? I don't know if their edible ones though...
funky_seagull
Anonymous's picture
sorry to all concerned for spoiling this thread.. I feel awful
funky_seagull
Anonymous's picture
The student learns by daily increment. The way is gained by daily loss, Loss upon loss until At last comes rest. By letting go, it all gets done; The world is won by those who let it go! But when you try and try, The world is the beyond winning. paraphrase ( A student adds each day to his stock of knowledge or experience; but the attainment of the way is not like that. Each day one sheds a selfish impulse or desire and continues to do so until his will is at rest in the way and is undistracted. One can let go of everything except the way; but having the way, one has the whole world with it. The world can be mine if I do not try to own it or run it according to my ideas.) I guess what I'am trieing to say is maybe writing has some kind of alchemy that defies money. If you do something for the love of it... then it don't matter. If we keep thinking about how nice it would be to be published by other people and see our name on the bookshelfs, we are leaching ourselves of power. Instead we need to decide that we will write no matter what and share that writing no matter what. There are good guys helping us out there.. take this web-site for instance... here we can all do those two things write, and share our writing, without worrying about those big publishers and bookstores... to me this is a miracle, and I am greatful for it. 'I am perhaps more stubborn than most or maybe more uppity or maybe just more convinced of the essential democracy of the arts. I believe that if one of us cares enough to write something, someone else will care enough to read it. In other words for every writer there is a reader - or many readers. The desire to write is a deap-seated drive to communicate and that is answered by an equally powerful drive to be communicated to. We are all in this together, I believe, and our writing and reading one another is a powerful comfort to us all. ' quotes from Julia camerons book ' The right to write.
mississippi
Anonymous's picture
I've noticed Funky, that you don't seem to be yourself tonight, are you on something we should all be sharing or are you delirious?
justyn_thyme
Anonymous's picture
Agreed that the system makes it harder for new talent to get published, and encourages these stupid celeb bios. I just think the system is inevitable until alternative publishing mechanisms become common enough, and cheap enough, to make a dent. This is already happening with the internet and digital print-on-demand systems. Probably another 10 years before it makes a really big dent, but it is on the way for sure. This is good news for the likes of us.
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