Books and the wider audience

12Apr08

Two things this week have underlined what sometimes appear to be difficult opposing forces within the book trade. The first was evident when I attended (thank you Bowker) the British Book Awards on Wednesday night. The red carpet was there, it’s televised on Channel 4 on Sunday, and it was arranged very much around that and the concious desire of the trade to create something ‘mass market’ but worthy that pushes books in the way other entertainment products are.

Celebs of varying degrees of fame were then wheeled on to present awards, chuckle with Richard and Judy, and generally push the ten or so titles the event revolved around. Don’t get me wrong many of these are great books – and yes, if involving a few celebrities sees more people reading them then all to the good.

I wasn’t convinced the trade had it’s heart in it though – many were talked over, and there was a general feeling of embarrassment. When Judy asked one award presenter whether she ‘bothered to read?’, in a very casual manner, it drew sighs from most of the attendees. As if the whole manufactured event was just so people who don’t read a lot or could be considered in any way intellectual could come on and say ‘aren’t books great!’ or as Geri Halliwell said ‘reading anything is good’.

I’m not sure how we as a trade really tackle the issue of ‘popular’ vs ‘worthy’ but I don’t think the BBA was it.

I’ve also been putting together a piece for the Bookseller’s Association conference. I have to pitch ‘the next big thing’ for a trade campaign against other industry people – very tough it has been too. What I wanted to do was come up with something that didn’t just sell more books to the same people, but actually grow the market. I’ll post the slides up post event – see what you think.

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