"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?