With some of England’s biggest authors set to launch new books this spring, Guardian columnist Robert McCrum takes a few moments to reflect on the marketing and publicity machines that will send the authors halfway around the world and into the arts sections of dozens of newspapers and magazines. McCrum doesn’t like what he sees, and goes as far as to say that for frontlist authors the demands of the book tour and publicity junket have come to almost eclipse the actual writing of books: “Authors of all shapes and sizes have become either the dupes or accomplices of a publishing industry that is exploiting its writers as its unpaid representatives. A publishing house that sends an author to a ‘book event’ is selling books of course. It is also bolstering its place in a cut-throat market at virtually no cost. In the process, the odd, lonely business of putting one word in front of another in a small, white room gets neglected.”
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Read Robert McCrum’s column in the Guardian
