Books

Some months ago the press reported that Monica Lewinsky’s book had sold “only” half a million copies before the publisher had to reduce its price. Obviously, the only reason thinking adults read the article is because it was about books. But for 100 members we need to explain that it wasn’t about sex.

Thousands of people write books every year. Hundreds of those get published A few get read; more linger on the “Bargain Books” counter; most end up in boxes in the author’s basement. Emotionally its an ego trip — or an embarrassment — and financially its a waste of time.

Its like the fellow interviewed in the paper the other day. He made news for something he did as a child and since then has shared obscurity with the rest of us. When one of those “Where are they now?” stories was done about him he talked about his routine job (a low-level bureaucrat) but added that he had been working for years on a book and a screenplay. Now, there aren’t many things more pathetic than the little guy who’s been working for years on a book. He has flushed years of time, effort, and hope down the drain. But he will persevere and his unpublished, unpublishable, and forever-unfinished manuscript will be his life’s companion.

Some authors make lots of money. But many of the authors who get paid the most aren’t authors. This, in case you were beginning to wonder, is where Monica Lewinsky comes in. Consider, for example, politician (or actor, or big businessman, or presidential intern) Joe Doe. Joe Doe gets into an incredible scandal; Joe Doe gets thrown out of polite society, and maybe into jail; Joe Doe gets paid a million dollars up front to talk to a ghost writer; and the book comes out: My Incredible Story, “by Joe Doe.” The books is trash but will be marketed as a gripping, timely, revealing examination of important issues, with some sex thrown in. Joe Doe retires in luxury, even if the book bombs. And if it sells, Joe gets another seven-figure advance to talk to another ghost writer for a sequel.

Its like buying Michael Jordan underwear. Michael Jordan doesn’t design it, make it, or, we suspect, even wear it. It’s just underwear, with Michael Jordan’s name on it so that Haynes can piggyback on free publicity. You knew that. The key is to know that books work the same way.

Joe Doe’s book isn’t Joe Doe’s book; it’s just a book with Joe Doe’s name on it so that the publisher can take advertising advantage of Joe’s adventures with the tabloids. If it doesn’t sell, the only one who loses is the publisher, whose idea it all was, anyway. That’s all it ever was: a publisher’s speculative moneymaking venture.

Most of the books in the bookstore are just publishers’ speculations. The publisher decides what type of book is popular and commissions someone — magazine writers, mostly — to write one. The risk is that by the time the book comes out the fad will have passed or people will have lost interest in yesterday’s scandal. But the risk is not great since these books are cheaply written and cheaply produced. Those ending up on the Bargain Books counter still make everybody (except the author) plenty of money. (The “bargain” or “clearance” book is like the car “priced to sell”: the price is closer to fair than it was before but hasn’t gotten there yet and isn’t likely to. A book that nobody is gullible enough to pay too much for is “remaindered,” i.e., sold back to the publisher.)

(What about non-book stores, like the grocery stores? They contract with wholesalers who pick the books — and the magazines, by the way — and stock the racks. The books stocked are those intended to sell to women and kids. No offense, ladies, but that’s the truth; the jobbers figure that those are the people who pick books at grocery stores.)

So Monica Lewinsky is semi-literate and has the mind of a thirteen-year-old? So she couldn’t write a coloring book? So what? Monica Lewinsky was a name, however briefly, and people buy names. That is why Stephen King can churn out a new potboiler every six months that allegedly sends chills up the spines of adolescents: when you’re selling the name, not the book, it doesn’t matter what’s in it.

The interesting thing was the spin that the papers put on the story. At half a million copies, Monica’s book was a success. But that wasn’t the way the press chose to report it. Why not? Because newspapers’ content is as demand-driven as publishers’: in order to sell product the papers print what the public wants to read, or what they think the public wants to read. That’s why the section theoretically devoted to “news” shrinks while the sections on travel, home decorating, cooking, and whatever else polling data says is popular, proliferate. Somebody decided that the public was tired of Monica and so she is presented as a vacuous bimbo who wrote a failed book rather than as a vacuous bimbo who had a ghost-written bestseller.

Now, wasn’t that more interesting than just another article about sex?