In case you’d like a short summary of all the media this past week, I’ll save you a few hours of Internet reading:
1. A baby was born in the UK. It’s called Alexander something, single-handedly bringing three old-fashioned names back into… fashion?
2. Some Weiner called Anthony.
3. J.K. Rowling wrote a book under the name Robert Galbraith and it didn’t immediately sell millions.
This news about Rowling has been hogging my entire feed, or so it seems. People are actually surprised to learn that J.K. Rowling’s non-Potter books sell MOSTLY… almost entirely… because of her name.
In other words, most people who have purchased Rowling’s new detective novel since hearing the breaking news are buying it because of the author’s name.
Here’s Duncan J. Watts writing for Bloomberg:
Last weekend’s revelation that J.K. Rowling is the author of the critically acclaimed and — until now — commercially unsuccessful crime novel “The Cuckoo’s Calling” has electrified the book world and solidified Rowling’s reputation as a genuine writing talent: After all, if she can impress the critics without the benefit of her towering reputation, then surely her success is deserved.
And yet what this episode actually reveals is the opposite: that Rowling’s spectacular career is likely more a fluke of history than a consequence of her unique genius.
Whenever someone is phenomenally successful, whether it’s Rowling as an author, Bob Dylan as a musician or Steve Jobs as an innovator, we can’t help but conclude that there is something uniquely qualifying about them, something akin to “genius,” that makes their successes all but inevitable.
I’m not going to pretend that I’m above all this. I spent a few hours browsing second-hand books the other day and walked away with an armload of novels which I’d picked in most part because I’d heard about them. In some cases I hadn’t heard about the books — I took a chance only because of the author’s name. If I were paying new book prices, I probably would’ve needed to be a lot more sure of the contents before handing over the cash. We all do this. We are all buying things because someone, somewhere has told us to buy them.
When it comes to the role of luck in artistic success, or perhaps any kind of success, much as already been said:
The works of Herman Melville, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, though great, are known today as classics because of the slightest, fortuitous turns of circumstance – turns entirely beyond the authors’ control. “Moby-Dick” was met with near universal scorn, until it was found by a sympathetic critic in a used bookstore in 1916, 25 years after Melville’s death. A remaindered copy of “Leaves of Grass” was also happened upon – this time bought from a book peddler and given to a critic as a gift.
- Secrets of Success from Salon
This next part may seem completely unrelated.
But check out the Wikipedia entry on Martha Stewart, which I gotta admit, had me actually LOLing a while back:
Martha and Andrew Stewart divorced in 1987. Subsequently, Stewart dated Sir Anthony Hopkins, but ended the relationship after she saw The Silence of the Lambs. She stated she was unable to avoid associating Hopkins with the character of Hannibal Lecter.
Sir Anthony made such an excellent job of playing a psychopath that I might feel the same way about dating him. Ditto if Rowan Atkinson had ever entered my dating world, or Jason Alexander (aka George Costanza) or Jack Black. I have no idea what these men are like in real life, but my response to these actors has been carefully crafted by films and expert marketers.
Even after meeting the real Anthony Hopkins, marketing had done such a great job on Martha Stewart that she (reportedly) called the whole thing off.
I’m reminded of the J.K. Rowling news because whether we like it or not, our impressions of things, and people, and authors — and their books — are out of our hands to a large degree. We’re all riding along on this wave of pop culture and it takes a leap of faith to branch out and find small distribution stuff which is tailored exactly to our own eccentric tastes, and not watered down to suit the profitable masses.
Given that there’s only so much money in our entertainment budgets, and only so many hours in the week, I suppose the best we can aim for is to keep an ear to the ground for things that might interest us, and take a punt every now and then on something completely new.
Oh yes. Our second small press picturebook app for iPad comes out today. It’s called Midnight Feast. Funny I should mention that.
Also on my mind lately:
Is there any such thing as bad publicity? Maybe that unlikely sounding truism is actually true.
Paula Deen’s Bad Week Leads to Great Sales from Publisher’s Weekly. You see, I’d never heard of this woman’s name until her very bad week. I’m not even American. Yet now, for some godforsaken reason, I remember her actual name.
