Paul Whybrow
Full Member
I've previously commented in old threads, about the racket of book cover endorsements by famous authors.
In this article from the Guardian, one of this year's Man Booker Prize judges, travel writer Colin Thubron, takes issue with the practice:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/sep/15/do-celebrity-book-blurbs-blackmail-readers-man-booker-prize-colin-thubron?
If nothing else, the distribution of free proof copies to authors, begging for them to say something nice, does explain the crammed bookshelves of their studies whenever there's a photograph accompanying an interview with them.
There used to be a collectors' bookstore in Looe, Cornwall, which apart from stocking rare, signed editions of classic novels also furnished the masses with cheap paperbacks and uncorrected proof versions of recently-published novels. They had plain white covers and were printed on rough stock paper. Often, there were clumsily scribbled comments in the margins, not all of them complimentary! I used to wonder which local author was offloading their freebies, and how much they were paid for them....Then, I remembered that a celebrity couple, who are television chat show hosts, have a holiday cottage in Looe. They run a Book Club, along the lines of Oprah Winfrey's, and are hugely influential in influencing a novel's success.
The same sort of thing happens with music albums—the CD and vinyl covers carrying pathetic stickers 'Not For Resale'.
In this article from the Guardian, one of this year's Man Booker Prize judges, travel writer Colin Thubron, takes issue with the practice:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/sep/15/do-celebrity-book-blurbs-blackmail-readers-man-booker-prize-colin-thubron?
If nothing else, the distribution of free proof copies to authors, begging for them to say something nice, does explain the crammed bookshelves of their studies whenever there's a photograph accompanying an interview with them.
There used to be a collectors' bookstore in Looe, Cornwall, which apart from stocking rare, signed editions of classic novels also furnished the masses with cheap paperbacks and uncorrected proof versions of recently-published novels. They had plain white covers and were printed on rough stock paper. Often, there were clumsily scribbled comments in the margins, not all of them complimentary! I used to wonder which local author was offloading their freebies, and how much they were paid for them....Then, I remembered that a celebrity couple, who are television chat show hosts, have a holiday cottage in Looe. They run a Book Club, along the lines of Oprah Winfrey's, and are hugely influential in influencing a novel's success.
The same sort of thing happens with music albums—the CD and vinyl covers carrying pathetic stickers 'Not For Resale'.
