The Guardian's now onto it with an article by D J Taylor entitled "Won't somebody publish Abi Titmuss?"
Alas, Taylor concluded with the words: "London publishing may well be in crisis, pitching serious novelists into the street in its anxiety to give Big Brother throw-outs the platform they so clearly deserve, but this is, above all, a free-speech issue: Titmuss and her kind have a right to be heard".
"...have a right to be heard?"
Hmm. Who does? All of us, given that thought. Publishers take note. You have to publish anyone who has anything to say, should they evoke that "right". (The Human Rights Act perhaps?)
"Titmuss and her kind have a right to be heard."
Yes they do, and to those they engage with, in conversation, to those who are interested. This doesn't necessarily mean a mass media frenzy and broad publication. Time to get real! All have a decent right to be heard, just as all have a decent right to decline the invitation to listen. No one has a right to be published. To suggest synchronicity of these "rights" is, at least misguided, at best, erroneous.
No one has a right, they have a potential market of readers, who are interested in what the author has to say.
Back to basics guys and gals - before it really does become a Christmas of shabby literary offerings!
Too right Wandering! Whilst we all have a right to be heard and the freedom to express ourselves as we see fit:
1. no one has to suffer being enforced to hear it, and
2. no publisher has to suffer being enforced to publish someone's ramblings. They choose what they believe the public will repsond to, what they think will sell and make them profits.
But in all commercial worlds, decision makers will take decisions following trends or anticipating trends. "Celeb" stuff may have sold well to date, given the odd one or two anomalies, but there's also something known as "taking a good thing too far". If publishers choose to flood the market with such stuff, they take a risk. A glut of something does not necessarily lead to a glut of gluttonous profits. A focus on one sector of reader, ignores the others. At their peril!
Posted by: crimeficreader | 28 September 2006 at 21:37
As a hobby printer (letterpress) my first thought was the old saying "freedom of the press belongs to those that own one". The idea, of course, is that you have no obligation to publish what someone else wants you to say.
If you want to "be heard", buy a printing press, or, in this high-tech era, put your book on Lulu.com. Any reviewer or publisher who submits to the idea anyone has a "right" to dictate what someone else shall publish is acting against the principles of free speech and expression.
Free speech and expression simply means you are free to express yourself, not that you are entitled to have someone else help you. And, yes, I am belabouring the point. D J Taylor, at least, would seem to need it.
Posted by: the Wandering Author | 28 September 2006 at 20:35