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• British Book Sales: Nonfiction Slumps, Fiction Sells

  2009 Nov 6

  The Bookseller reports that sales of nonfiction in Britain are slumping while sales of fiction are up 90%.

  Sales of this year's top 10 non-fiction books in October were down 52% year on year, while sales of hardback fiction titles have soared by 90%. Figures for the most recent week to 31st October showed non-fiction continuing to underperform. Only Guinness World Records and Delia Smith's Delia's Happy Christmas (Ebury) sold more than 10,000 copies last week. Last year 10 hardback non-fiction titles passed this threshold during the same period.
  
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  Cookery titles have in the past been a Christmas staple, with celebrity chefs whipping up high sales. However, sales of Jamie's America (Michael Joseph) have been well behind Jamie's Ministry of Food (Michael Joseph) from last year. Sally Hughes of Books for Cooks said: "Jamie did well when he was on TV but has fallen off quickly. River Cafe is not moving as well as we thought it might-it is selling but it seems a bit slow." However, retailers hailed the success of Guinness World Records, which knocked Dan Brown off this week's top spot with sales of 31,812.
  
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  In spite of non-fiction's woes, sales of fiction are thriving in early autumn. Hardback fiction was up almost double (90.2%) in October year on year. Books by Dan Brown, Martina Cole and Terry Pratchett have been enjoying healthy sales figures despite the recession. Rachel Russell, business unit director for books at W H Smith, said: "Fiction is doing very well and seems to be muscling into the non-fiction market. I expect gifting to come later in non-fiction because Christmas falls on a Friday."

  So why is fiction suddenly outselling nonfiction like crazy? Perhaps the terrible economy has something to do with it. Fiction is an escape. When times are bad, it's quite relaxing to dip into a fictional world. Other than cook books and lifestyle titles, most of the nonfiction is a tad depressing. Just dip into any of the finance/fall of Wall Street titles, for example, and prepare to be horrified.
  
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• Publisher's Weekly Under Fire for All Male Best Books List

  2009 Nov 5

  Publisher's Weekly is under fire for putting out list of the ten best books of the year that includes no female authors.

  "The absence made me nearly speechless." said poet and creative writing professor Cate Marvin, co-founder of new US literary organisation Women in Letters and Literary Arts (WILLA). WILLA has gathered more than 5,500 members since it launched in August with the aim of bringing "increased attention to women's literary accomplishments and [questioning] the American literary establishment's historical slow-footedness in recognising and rewarding women writers' achievements".
  
  The group pointed to new books published this year by Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Rita Dove, Heather McHugh and Alicia Ostriker. "It continues to surprise me that literary editors are so comfortable with their bias toward male writing, despite the great and obvious contributions that women authors make to our contemporary literary culture," said Marvin.
  
  Announcing the list, novelist and journalist Louisa Ermelino said that PW "wanted [it] to reflect what we thought were the top 10 books of the year with no other consideration". "We ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz. We gave fair chance to the 'big' books of the year, but made them stand on their own two feet," she said, adding that "it disturbed us when we were done that our list was all male".
  
  Poet Erin Belieu, WILLA's other co-founder and director of the creative writing programme at Florida State University, said that "when PW's editors tell us they're not worried about 'political correctness', that's code for 'your concerns as a feminist aren't legitimate'". "They know they're being blatantly sexist, but it looks like they feel good about that," said Belieu. "I, on the other hand, have heard from a whole lot of people -- writers and readers -- who don't feel good about it at all."

  You can see Publisher's Weekly's controversial list here.
  
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• Stephen King Pens Poem for Playboy Magazine

  2009 Nov 4

  Stephen King has written a new poem for Playboy magazine called "The Bone Church." The Guardian reminds us that Playboy actually has a long literary history, publishing such authors as As a young, miserable, unpublished author Stephen King says he used to fantasize about being interviewed in Playboy. But he knew the magazine only interviewed successful, serious authors.

  Playboy has a perhaps surprisingly strong literary background, publishing works by authors including John Irving, John Updike, Vladimir Nabokov and Margaret Atwood. This summer, literary editor Amy Grace Loyd acquired first serial rights in Vladimir Nabokov's final, unfinished novel The Original of Laura for its December issue. It has also enjoyed a lengthy relationship with King, interviewing the author back in 1983.
  
  "The protagonist of Salem's Lot, a struggling young author with a resemblance to his creator, confesses at one point, 'Sometimes when I'm lying in bed at night, I make up a Playboy Interview about me. Waste of time. They only do authors if their books are big on campus.' Ten novels and several million dollars in the bank later, your books are big on campus and everywhere else," the interviewer said to King.
  
  The author replied that the passage reflected his state of mind in the days before he sold his first book, Carrie, when nothing seemed to be going right. "When I couldn't sleep, in that black hole of the night when all your doubts and fears and insecurities surge in at you, snarling, from the dark -- what the Scandinavians call the wolf hour -- I used to lie in bed alternately wondering if I shouldn't throw in the creative towel and spinning out masturbatory wish fulfilment fantasies in which I was a successful and respected author. And that's where my imaginary Playboy interview came in," he said.

  "The Bone Church" is the story of an ill-fated jungle expedition told by a man in a bar. "There were thirty-two of us went into that greensore/ and only three who rose above it./ It doesn't have a happy ending, so you've been warned. You can read the poem for free here.
  
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