I was in Tesco yesterday (that’s an inauspicious start, but bear with me), and found myself wandering, as I so often do when in need of righteous indignation, towards their books aisle.
This time, I was more troubled than usual.
Before I go on, I should explain that I find some things about the book industry hard to accept.
Its Richard and Judy-isation, for example (and not just because my publisher sent them Blame and they failed to add it to their roster - though that didn’t endear them to me much). I’m not saying quality, genre-defying and mould-breaking books shouldn’t be heavily promoted. That’s not my issue, exactly. My gripe is more to do with the fact that the pair of them are now writing their fourth and third books respectively.
The idea that someone has been popular on the television so they’ll be a spectacular storyteller is so obtuse I don't even know where to begin. Look on the copyright pages and so many of these celebrity writers will have a ghostwriter hidden there in a font so small you need a microscope (I'm not saying R&J do this: I'm sure they're amazing, naturally-gifted storytellers that simply came to the party late). Sometimes, their ghostwriters don’t even get a credit; they merely sign a confidentiality agreement. Sticking a celebrity name on a product is one of the worst aspects of late-era capitalism. You think celebrities make the best hot sauces just because they’re celebrities? No! All that ‘back on my farm in Louisiana my mom used to make the greatest jalapeño relish in the neighbourhood’ is pure marketing hokum. And Jennifer Lopez doesn’t mix her own perfume in vast vats in her basement either. It‘s the same attitude that led people to believe a reality TV star could be a successful president.
Success in one field doesn’t make you world-beating in others. Why is book writing seen as so easy and transferable a skill? It doesn't work the other way around: successful New York Times writers aren’t begged by their agents to release a drum and bass album off the back of their impressive sales. It keeps me up at night, this. Honestly.
Anyway, I was in Tesco. At the books aisle. Trying not to weep.
And this is what I saw:
Get a load of those celebs. Cliff Richard. Claudia Winkleman. Maria Carey. Phillip Schofield. Bugger me sideways.
I’m sure Phillip Schofield gets a lot of time at his typewriter in between cackling his face off throughout every single damn programme on British television.
I should make it clear that I have nothing against ghostwriters themselves (if I was offered a large sum for a book on the proviso that my name wouldn’t be anywhere near it, I’d consider the offer), and given that most of these are biographies I can *almost* forgive the practice, but it’s still a deception. Jodie Whitaker doesn’t pay a lookalike to turn on the Christmas lights in Hull in her stead. Even musicians, who have a long and honourable history of covering each other's songs, and constantly put a pretty face to an old roué’s lyrics, baulk at the memory of Milli Vanilli.
So, yeah, Tesco. That’s what they sell. I get that. But right now, we’re in lockdown, apparently (I’m a teacher, so the government thinks I’m immune to the 150 other humans I share rooms with during the day - you can endure some of my recent TES articles on the subject here, btw), and, like the bookies and the barbershops, the bookshops are shut. The indies, Waterstones, all of them. But the supermarkets can legally sell their big-5-published, major-release, spunked-out-in-time-for-Christmas, ‘celebrity’-ghostwritten hardbacks? Is that fair?
I’m not one for conspiracies but I can see where the foil-hatters are coming from with this one. This is not healthy capitalist competition. This is the slaughter of the underdogs by monolithic, corporate England.
It’s the same complaint the clothing stores are making. Why are the supermarkets so privileged? Shouldn’t they shutter their clothes aisles? Why would the local haberdashery be more dangerous right now than Sainsbury's, with its hurrying ‘exempt’ customers and coughing Karens popping in for an essential packet of crisps? None of those books on sale in the supermarkets are by independent or smaller presses. These are all deals made with the top brass and pushed on us like end-of-aisle cheese.
So where do people go? Amazon, unfortunately. Unless they really, really want to read nothing but David Walliams. Oh, yeah, they’ve got ALL of his.
See?
In the spirit of positivism, and because I’ve come across as nothing but bitter over the course of this blog entry, I feel I should offer a solution. Most independent bookshops are still operating online. Look them up, place an order. Pay them a visit when they reopen next month. Buy your family Christmas presents from them.
Bookshop.org.uk can help you find a local independent bookstore, as can booksellers.org.uk. Hive.co.uk makes it easy to support your local high street too.
Keep your indies from going under. Please.
This might be my last blog entry for a little while (who cheered?) as I'm, you know, going to be working on a thing for a bit.
Thanks for reading, if indeed you still are.
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