I am going to talk a little bit about the book business today.
Glancing at the news this morning I see that Alan Greenspan has a new book coming out. Now, my first thought about that would be; “Who cares what an 81-year-old economist has to say about anything”? Nothing against economists or the elderly but this guy’s field of expertise doesn’t apply to most people’s lives. When Greenspan was chairman of the fed, a lot of people in the financial world would hang on every word he said in public but only to find out what was going to happen with interest rates. I’m sure there are people in this world that would be fascinated by Greenspan’s theories on economics but that is a pretty limited group of consumers.
Here are a few headlines about Greenspan’s book.
“Greenspan Book Criticizes Bush and Republicans”
“Former Fed Chief Attacks Bush on Fiscal Role”
“Alan Greenspan Claims Iraq War Was Really For Oil”
Obviously, if you are chairman of the Federal Reserve, it is not your role to spout political opinion. At the same time, if you are just a run of the mill 81-year-old, retired economist nobody is going to be interested. As Greenspan is retired from the fed, he has every right to say what he wants about anything. Rave on Alan Greenspan.
Now, Greenspan could probably write a good book about economics, maybe a great one. Hell, who knows, this current book might be on the cutting edge in that respect but that won’t sell books. So, what the publisher and publicists are going to do is key on sensationalism. They are going to identify polarizing topics. Looking at the above headlines, it appears that this book is being promoted as a “tell all” affair. So, they will sell some books to people who don’t like republicans or Bush, or feel that the war is about oil. Who knows, they may even sell a few to folks who feel the opposite way.
The point is, that the way a book is marketed is through the press. If a publicist can somehow manipulate the press into thinking that a book release is news, they have effective advertising. Think about this; how many times do you see books advertised on T.V.? You may see a few ads for a new Stephen King book, but not often. It’s because traditional advertising doesn’t work for selling books.
You often hear that Oprah Winfrey is the undisputed, all powerful force when it comes to book selling. The fact is, Oprah is only going to push a limited amount of books on certain topics and an author like Greenspan doesn’t fit the profile. So, in most cases the best way’s to sell books are sensationalism and media manipulation.
O.K., bear with me now. I have been away from the news for a few days but everywhere I look or listen there is this convoluted story about O.J. Simpson and a hotel break-in/ sports memorabilia/guns/Las Vegas blah, blah, etc., etc….
Is it just sheer coincidence that O.J. Simpson gets into the national news the same day that the infamous “If I Did It” book was finally released? Something is screwy here. Beaufort Books, the publisher, is supposedly one of those shared costs/shared profit ventures and if you look at their website, the list of titles is not full of best sellers.
Is it possible that O.J. was trying to pull off some publicity stunt in Vegas that got out of hand? Sounds far-fetched doesn’t it? This is odd though; Alfred Beardsley who accused Simpson of armed robbery now says he is on O.J.’s side and wants to drop the charges according to Breitbart/AP.
It seems a stretch that a small time publisher and Fred Goldman would put O.J. Simpson up to a wacky publicity stunt but at the very least, Goldman and Beaufort stand to profit from O.J. being in the news. In other words, I am not coming right out and saying that Goldman/Beaufort have some back door deal with Simpson but the whole history if this sordid book is surreal; nothing would surprise me at this point. Simpson, being a sociopath, may have conjured up a publicity scheme on his own. Maybe he thinks there is a way to profit from the book selling even if he isn’t getting direct money. Maybe, O.J. has his own publicist that egged him on. Or, like I said, maybe it is all coincidence.
At the end of the day, Fred Goldman, with all of his posturing and justificaction, is in business with O.J.
Even if you doubt the concept of media manipulation in the selling of books, you can not deny the media’s influence on sales. Currently, at Amazon, the Simpson book is ranked number one and the Greenspan book is number two. In a time when the book business is generally going down the tube, those are some impressive rankings by a ghost written/ “fictional”/ memoir of an ex-athlete/acquitted killer and a book by a retired economist.
By the way, I have written a surprising amount of stuff concerning O.J. Simpson/Fred Goldman and the whole book thing from the git-go. Here is a link to a recent post that contains further links to archive posts on the subject if you are interested.
