Half price TV legends brought to book

I write books. So far I've 21 to my name - on a variety of subjects. I say this not to boast but as a precursor to what I am about to write so you will understand and hopefully forgive my bitterness.

I was in my local Smiths a summer or two back when I overheard a man say to his wife, "I wish I was a writer. They must make so much money." I didn't disillusion him. My first book was published when I was 24 and my most recent appeared in 2010. My advances have ranged from three figures to low five figures (very low).

It irks me therefore to see publishers splashing out huge advances on celebrity autobiographies when one, the celebrities don't actually write the books and two, the publishers can never hope to recoup their outlay. I popped into my local Waterstones about two hours ago and there on the shelves are books "by" Lee Evans, Rob Brydon, James Corden, Jason Manford, Peter Kay, Steve Coogan, Simon Mayo, Noel Fielding and a good number more. These books all had one thing in common - each and everyone bore a sticker that read "Half Price".

About three months ago, Smiths had a delivery of a palletload of books about the talentless boyband One Direction. There are two piles of the books, next to the sports section, and each pile is about four feet high. Three months ago, the pile was four feet high. This morning the pile was four feet high.

In the Winter 2012 edition of The Author, the magazine of The Society of Authors the biographer Roger Lewis bemoans the lack of critical faculties in the media and publishing. He points out that he was hired as a television critic for a national newspaper only for the editor to emasculate his work.

Some celebrities can write - Paul O'Grady for one but most take the money, hire a ghost and run. I'm still struck by the memory of Sharon Osbourne going to Leicester, I think, to sign copies of "her" novel and getting caught in a traffic jam. She apologised to the crowd for being late and proceeded to sign her name in a book that she hadn't written.

There is, of course, nothing new in this. Jordan doesn't write her books and if the stories are to be believed doesn't read them either. Naomi Campbell neither wrote nor read Swan yet her name appeared on the cover. Don't these celebrities have any shame? Do they not feel at least a little embarrassed signing a book that they had very little to do with, apart from putting their name on the cover. We know Coco Chanel didn't actually mix the perfumes herself but she did draw the designs for her LBDs, which is more than Victoria Beckham, another "author", does for "her" overpriced frocks.

So what is to be done? Well, publishers will continue to churn out celebrity pap but at least cut the advances so that proper authors can get a slice of the cake. How many real books could have been published, marketed and sold with the money wasted on the books bearing the names of Lee Evans, Rob Brydon, James Corden, Peter Kay, Steve Coogan, James Manford, Simon Mayo and Noel Fielding? It's not even as if they need the money...

Writes and wrongs of Jordan's books

Yesterday, Jordan admitted that she doesn't write her own books. I thought everyone knew that - look at the copyright page of them and it mentions the name of Rebecca Farnsworth, the ghost.

A few weeks ago, I was on a train to Fenchurch Street and sitting near me were four middle-class girls. One of them said that she had read Jordan's latest and was surprised it was good. I wondered then why she was surprised - the book was written by a professional author after all... as indeed are the majority of celebrity books.

Wading through the forests of nonsense...

I buy lots of books - many from amazon.

When you sign in to the site, amazon will provide a list of recommendations - books, DVDs, CDs, what-have-you that its computers think will be of interest to you.

I think someone need to have a look at its algorithms.

Today I have received the following recommendations:

TV Cream's Toys: Presents You Pestered Your Parents for
Recommended because you purchased James Robertson Justice: What's the Bleeding-Time?

Spirit ~ Leona Lewis
Recommended because you said you owned The Arsenal Miscellany

Billy Connolly Live - Was It Something I Said?
Recommended because you said you owned The Ireland Rugby Miscellany

Gavin And Stacey : Complete BBC Series 1 [2007]
Recommended because you said you owned The Wales Rugby Miscellany

Why Is Yawning Contagious?: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Human Body, and Some Things You'd Rather Not by Francesca Gould
Recommended because you purchased I Never Knew That About Wales

Stop the love-in

There are few people in the public eye now that can be described as "best-loved". In days gone by Britain's best-loved sitcom was Only Fools and Horses; best-loved magician Tommy Cooper; best-loved double act Morecambe and Wise and best-loved royal Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Now people are liked rather than loved. Tolerated for a brief time until they are no longer wanted.

This doesn't stop publishers referring to "best-loved". I have already commented on Julian Clary who is not one of Britain's "best-loved entertainers" despite what his publishers may think.

Two more incidences arise. Richard Hammond is "one of Britain's best-love television presenters" and Graham McCann is apparently "Britain's best-loved showbiz writer".

This is plainly nonsense.

As with Clary, when was the last time you heard someone say, "We must watch telly tonight Richard Hammond's on"?

And Graham McCann is not "Britain's best-loved showbiz writer" for two simple reasons: one, Britain does not have a best-loved showbiz writer, and two, no one has ever heard of him.

Enough of the luvvieness.

The over-selling of Clary

Recently, I was browsing in a bookshop when I saw a new novel written by Julian Clary. Obviously, I didn't buy it – that only encourages them.

However, I was surprised that the blurb said, “Julian Clary is one of Britain’s best-loved entertainers”.

No, he’s not. He has a extremely limited appeal to a very niche market. When was the last time you heard someone say, “Oooh, we must stay in tonight (or set the TiVo) Julian Clary’s on the telly”?

Talking about MY generation

In the pantheon of rock'n'roll there are some incredible moments: Jimi Hendrix setting fire to his guitar, Keith Moon driving a Rolls Royce into a swimming pool, Jim Morrison exposing himself on stage to name but three that immediately spring to mind.

On Tuesday night the Rolling Stones played the Millennium Dome. During the course of the gig Keith Richards lit a cigarette on stage, followed by Ron Wood.

A member of the audience said, "It was a great rock'n'roll moment."

No, it wasn't it was a man who is a year short of being a pensioner lighting a fag. If whichever idiot who made the quote really does think that was a great rock'n'roll moment, he needs to get out more or stay in and read more books about the history of rock'n'roll.

Essex Murders

Just got the proof cover of my new book today and I think it looks fantastic, don't you?

New book

My new book - Essex Murders - is now listed on Amazon. It features around twenty gruesome homicides committed in God's own county from the seventeenth century up to the 1960s.

If you like true crime, it's one for your library.

Reviewing the literary situation

Here is the first in an occasional series of reviews.


Bridget Harrison - Tabloid Love (Bantam, £6.99)

Bridget Harrison is fit, funny and feisty - unfortunately, she is in a city where those qualities are not admired by men.
Few people would have the guts to give up a good job, a fun social life and a lover they hoped to marry to move to almost the other side of the world.
Harrison did just that. She was 29 when decided to live out her fantasy as a reporter on the New York Post. She knew very few people in the country and had never actually worked as a reporter but that didn't deter her. One of her first outings was to a Pimps, Players, Playboys and Prostitutes party in Brooklyn where she copped off with a fellow guest despite her long-term boyfriend back in London. When Angus, the boyfriend, arrived for a visit, Harrison knew the magic had gone and soon she was alone, trying to snag a boyfriend in a city when there are half a million more eligible women than men.
She went on dozens of dates in her search for Mr Perfect with hilarious results. One told her that she could look good if only she would make the effort. Another told her he only dated women who smoked pot and liked dogs. A third handed her a breath mint. Harrison lay in bed with a fourth who insisted on ringing his friend so he could hear a British accent. Unsurprisingly, Harrison made her excuses and left.
On top of her reporting duties, Harrison was asked to write a dating column about her miserable love life for the paper's Sunday edition. Then she fell for her boss, Jack, and eventually they began an affair which she relayed in gory detail in her column, changing his name but the subterfuge fooled absolutely no one at work. At last, Harrison had found her man only to blow it through her own insecurities. Telling millions of readers the intimate details didn't help either.
Although there are tabloid tales: a restaurateur who had his head chopped off by one of his waiters, 9/11, and the sad story of an old man left widowed when his wife went out for a pizza on Christmas Eve and was killed in a hit and run accident, Tabloid Love is at its best and at its funniest when Harrison recalls her (many) dating disasters and complete inability to understand American men - or should that be men in general?






Thunderstruck - Erik Larson (Doubleday, £17.99)

One was an inventor, the other a north London dentist who murdered his showgirl wife and fled with his mistress. It would seem that little connected Marconi and Dr Crippen, except that Crippen was the first murderer to be caught by wireless telegraphy, the invention of Marconi. From this basic premise, author Larson weaves an unexpected but gripping tale. It's the story of two Edwardians and their passions - one for his invention, the other for his young girlfriend - but it is also the fascinating social history of a long gone age. The case is linked to another great murder - the man who caught Crippen was Walter Dew, who had been a detective on the unsolved Jack the Ripper murders.











Chart Throb - Ben Elton (Bantam, £17.99)


The blurb says: "Ben Elton, author of Popcorn and Dead Famous returns to blistering comic satire with a savagely hilarious deconstruction of the world of modern television talent shows". Up to a point Lord Copper. The novel is based around a "talent show" which isn't a real talent show because the makers fix it for the contestants who make good television.

There are three judges: Calvin Simms, who owns the show and appears on the American version; Rodney Root, the boyband manager and Beryl Blenheim, the earth mother with an irritating squeaky voice and a dysfunctional family. Now, what are the differences between that and The X Factor? Simon Cowell appears on the American version; Louis Walsh is a boyband manager; and Sharon Osbourne is the mother of an extremely dysfunctional family.

In the book Beryl throws and guess what - on television Osbourne throws water.

The host is Keely who is blonde and bubbly and on television Kate Thornton is blonde and bubbly.

There are some changes in the book: Beryl is a transsexual which obviously Osbourne isn't. Rodney Root sleeps with a female contestant which Walsh obviously didn't.

It is an entertaining read but "a savagely hilarious deconstruction of the world of modern television talent shows" it isn't.