by Matt Lynn
Maybe this is wishful thinking, but there are signs that the reading public may be getting fed up with some of the pap the publishers have been pushing at them in the last few years.
The Bookseller reports, via The Sun, that bookshops are a little reluctant to stock the new Katie Price book, her fourth in five years.
Even if you accept that Price is worth one memoir, maybe even two, four is probably pushing it a bit, even by the standards of Random House.
Meanwhile, I'm not sure the James Patterson word factory is quite the Toyota-style paragon of efficiency it should be either. Alex Cross's Trial drops back from 2 to 7 in the hardback charts this week, according to The Times.
Patterson has some talent, but by churning out formulaic, ghost-written thrillers he isn't doing anyone any favours. Least of all himself.
One of the purposes of The Curzon Group is to promote quality popular fiction - our own, obviously, but also other people's. It's encouraging to think that the reading public is fed up with cynical, ghost-written pap. We might even be on to something.
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I hope you're right, Matt. It's heartening to read a positive view on the current state of the book market. I do think a writer has a duty to at least try to write well - and to write his or her own books . . . The kind of 'pap' you mention does everyone a disservice - it can only turn readers off books. Grrr (that's an attempt to express my feelings politely)
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