Actor James Franco is getting Amazon to publish his first novel. Don't bank on him starting a new trend, says Nicholas Clee.
James Franco: 'Not keeping the publishing industry awake at night' Photo: Chris Pizzello/AP
“Publisher Signs Actor to Write Novel” is not usually the stuff of national press headlines. But when the publisher is Amazon every new signing is news, because it is seen as the latest step in the online book retailer’s campaign to take over the entire book industry. Perhaps it is time to calm down a little.
Who are the authors in these headline deals? The latest is the actor James Franco, of whose debut collection of stories Palo Alto, Benjamin Secher wrote in the Telegraph, “the world feels only half alive, the characters in it mere sketches”. There was Deepak Chopra, whose bibliography shows more than 65 previous publications and who has a continuing deal with a mainstream house, the self-help author Timothy Ferriss, and Penny Marshall, who starred in the US sitcom Laverne & Shirley and who directed the Tom Hanks film Big. We’re not talking about James Patterson or Meryl Streep.
Is Amazon Publishing making a mark in bookshops? No: the biggest terrestrial bookseller in the US, Barnes & Noble, declines to stock Amazon’s titles, as do many independent stores. Some stores report that they have never been approached by anyone claiming to represent the list. The publishing analyst Laura Hazard Owen examined the figures and revealed that only a handful of Amazon’s titles had sold more than 1,000 print copies.
Full story at The Telegraph.
Full story at The Telegraph.
