Richard and Judy's approval could make a book an instant bestseller. Could the heady days of the TV book club return? Viv Groskop reviews the genre
Viv Groskop, The Observer, Sunday 25 July 2010
You can almost feel the smarm in Richard Madeley's voice. "We're thrilled that the Richard and Judy name is once again associated with books." WH Smith announced last month that it is joining forces with daytime TV veterans Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan to create a new version of their TV book club. It will launch this autumn in 1,055 stores. Six books will be promoted, selected by Richard and Judy and WH Smith's buying team. Although there's no tie-in television show this time, a spokesperson said TV advertising was likely.
So is this the return of one of the greatest bookselling wheezes known to publishing? Or a watered-down TV-free version that will have little effect? The online reactions – many of them from disgruntled independent booksellers – are sceptical. "Next month, Waterstone's starts a new book club with a collection of titles chosen by the Chuckle Brothers," sniggered one. Others are more enthusiastic. "If people buy books because they are aware of the Richard and Judy 'brand', how can that be a bad thing?"
Guests were encouraged to talk about how the book had touched them personally and their "reviews" often became compellingly intimate or infectiously enthusiastic. Bonnie Greer talked of how Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea reminded her of how she felt as a black woman growing up in America. When comedian Jenny Éclair said David Nicholls's Starter for Ten made her "snigger, holler and hoot", sales went up by 1,000%. This was all huge news in the books world, where previously sales-boosting opportunities were limited to winning the Booker or Orange or, on a much smaller scale, being chosen for, say, Radio 4's Book of the Week and/or securing good review coverage in the press. As Philip Stone, charts editor at The Bookseller, puts it: "Quite simply, authors received a bigger benefit from appearing on Richard and Judy's sofa than by winning any of the major literary prizes in the UK." Today, however, the TV book show is in something of a crisis. Even the original mother of all TV book clubs – Oprah Winfrey's show – is on sabbatical until early 2011 while Winfrey fine-tunes plans to launch her own television network. There is no longer a television slot either in the UK or the US that can guarantee to turn a book into an overnight bestseller.
The svengali behind the original Richard and Judy Book Club, Cactus TV managing director Amanda Ross – once known as the most powerful woman in publishing – has been busily working away on her own pet project, The TV Book Club, shown on Channel 4 and More4 and now in its second season. But the programme has had mixed reviews. Philip Stone explains: "The new TV Book Club has not been as successful in pure sales terms as Richard and Judy – although £2.4m was spent on the 10 titles over the 11 weeks that the series was broadcast earlier this year." Hardly unimpressive for a brand new TV programme; but it's poor compared with the £8m spent on Richard and Judy books in 2008.
The TV Book Club presenters have come in for flak. They are a rotating team, which includes actors Stephen Tompkinson and Laila Rouass, plus fashion guru Gok Wan. Only Jo Brand has proven universally popular. Many viewers have winced at the plugs for celebrity autobiographies, including those of Chris Evans and Peter Andre (who hardly need the publicity). Others have complained that the presenters look bored and only discuss the books for about five minutes. Before the first series' figures came out one reviewer wondered if The TV Book Club – with its daytime-TV, Loose Women feel – might "actually have a negative impact on sales". In a scathing review Mark Lawson noted that the actor Denis Lawson, a guest on the programme, had confessed: "I hardly read anything." Another week Gok Wan said: "I have to admit – I'm not really at the end yet."
Audiences figures have averaged out at 400,000, compared with Richard & Judy's 2.5 million viewers at the height of their Channel 4 success. Ross, though, is bullish about the survival of her new TV Book Club and is continuing to tweak the format. She says her proudest achievement to date is simply securing a three-year television deal for any kind of books programme. She mentions casually that fans reading alongside the programme include Sarah Brown and Roger Moore: "There is no other window on TV like it," she says. "Obviously we need to build momentum. You can't expect a whole new venture to have the impact of something that existed for years." She points out that while sales may not have reached the lofty heights of the Richard and Judy years, "we still outsell the Booker". And, she adds, "everything else publishers do costs them money. Everything is governed by how much they are willing to pay."
This comment is a subtle dig at WH Smith's new deal. As is common with in-store retail promotions, the Richard and Judy picks will be "rate-carded": that means publishers will pay a sum towards the marketing of their book if it is chosen. (WH Smith has denied that books will be selected on the publishers' ability to pay.) Ross, however, has always made it a point of principle not to get involved in this practice: she heads a team who choose what they want from which publishers. The marketing is paid for by sponsorship (in the case of The TV Book Club, by Specsavers). Ross is hugely admired for this in the book trade, explains agent Carole Blake, who watched Star of the Sea by her author Joseph O'Connor climb to the top of the Amazon charts within four hours of the book's sofa review in 2004. "I was always amazed that Amanda [Ross] didn't move towards charging for Richard and Judy because it helped the book
Full story at The Guardian online.
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