But there’s a catch: Until the news leaked about the author’s real identity,
this critically acclaimed book had sold somewhere between 500 and 1,500 copies,
depending on which report you read.
This is where they lost me in Rowling's case (not that I disagree with the overall point of the article).
Let's say, I decide to write a book and a publisher buys it. It sells 1K copies. What are the chances this book will be reviewed by influential critics? Intuitively, I'd say close to zero. Doesn't this suggest she was throwing some weight behind the publication, albeit maybe anonymously and through her publisher or agent?
I think you are missing the point. There's no argument that new authors can sell a ton of books given the right inputs. What the article is saying is that you can sell a lot of shit to people with a fanbase. The point is proven with an overlooked book that was critically acclaimed but ignored by the public, but once tied to Rowling is now a best-seller.
Off the top of my head, in the book world, Stephen King is one of those people with that type of fanbase. I think a lot of people agree that he's a fine writer but there's a lot of junk mixed in with his good stuff - yet even the junk still rockets up the best seller list just because[1]. Stephanie Meyer can do this as well, and critics have said she's not a very good writer at all (ironically Stephen King said this too).
I'm not sure you read my post the way it was intended. I wasn't in need of a TL;DR.
My whole point (though admittedly tangential to the issue at hand which I already indicated I find plausible) is that it doesn't look to me like the mentioned critical acclaim could have come from nowhere - if the book doesn't sell at least a few copies it seems unlikely it would be reviewed at all, much less by prestigious critics.
The critics weren't especially prestigious, at least not outside crime writing circles - this wasn't the Times Literary Supplement or the national broadsheets. They were relatively well known crime writers (rather than literary critics which is where you might smell a rat) but not people you'd know if you weren't in to crime fiction.
The level of reviewing she got is pretty much what you'd expect from a book published by a major publisher in hardback. Yes they put their weight behind it but they'd do that in all similar cases - by the time they've paid for a manuscript to be edited and published as a hardback they're going to do everything they can to get that book in front of people as they've made a significant investment.
You might even argue in this case that they'd be more likely to go easy - after all there is essentially no risk to them. If it fails all they have to do is leak that it's her and it'll shift a load so there really is no reason to go against what were presumably Rowling's wishes (particularly as she's known to be strong willed and not someone you'd want to piss off if you want to publish her again).
What sort of makes your point is that she was being published in hard back at all - a major achievement for a first time writer and if she weren't who she were handing that manuscript in she may not have been published at all, but if you make the comparison between this and any other crime hardback, there's no evidence they did anything special.
The same is true of the sales.
The article makes out that 1,500 copies was a failure. Had it been a JK Rowling book that would certainly be true, but for a couple of months sales of a hardback from an unknown crime writer. Typically a debut novel will sell a few thousand copies in hardback and given that it hadn't been out that long (a couple of months against a total hardback sales period of maybe a year) isn't unreasonable to think this might have hit a pretty solid level. To put it in context the first Harry Potter novel had a first print run of 500 in hardback.
TL;DR version: the research may be fine but there's little evidence tying what happened with Rowling to it's point.
It's a solid point. I wonder though if it being a british author (even before it was known as Rowling) and forwarded to british critics by the british arm of the publishing company may have had something to do with it. Less crime novels published in UK than larger markets perhaps?
I think you missed the point of the above comment. The point was that you wouldn't expect significant critics to have reviewed a book by a no-name author and no marketing effort. So either it wasn't critically acclaimed, it had some marketing effort (the above poster's view), or just got really lucky and caught the eyes of some reviewers.
Maybe she didn't have to put that much weight, I think we can also consider the critics as one 'world' (in the article sense of the term). They influence each other, and if a small number of critics happen to find a novel above the average quality I can see how it could spread through their community, just like a viral novel spreads through the general public. Even more so as there are probably some links between the editors/agents and the critics, which could help bootstrap the critic-local fame (and then even a slight push by Rowling's agent/publisher can be enough to play the role of what would need to be 'luck' for regular unknown authors).
What I mean is that success among the public and the critics share the same luck/quality mechanism, but independently. Of course there is some influence from the critics towards the general public (and vice versa, although less I guess) but not enough, hence the critically praised novels that still fail to sell widely.
I think the "what are the chances" is the wrong way around for this case. Plenty of book review journals/ newspaper sections agree to review books of new authors before there are any sales figures, and it is not uncommon practice to send out review copies before the official publication date, because it is hard to get booksellers to stock books that either lack positive reviews or are "old" (i.e., well past official publication date).
So while it is hard for a new author to get reviewed by influential reviewers before there are sales figures, it is also the case that there are many such reviews.
Comments
Let's say, I decide to write a book and a publisher buys it. It sells 1K copies. What are the chances this book will be reviewed by influential critics? Intuitively, I'd say close to zero. Doesn't this suggest she was throwing some weight behind the publication, albeit maybe anonymously and through her publisher or agent?
I think you are missing the point. There's no argument that new authors can sell a ton of books given the right inputs. What the article is saying is that you can sell a lot of shit to people with a fanbase. The point is proven with an overlooked book that was critically acclaimed but ignored by the public, but once tied to Rowling is now a best-seller.
Off the top of my head, in the book world, Stephen King is one of those people with that type of fanbase. I think a lot of people agree that he's a fine writer but there's a lot of junk mixed in with his good stuff - yet even the junk still rockets up the best seller list just because[1]. Stephanie Meyer can do this as well, and critics have said she's not a very good writer at all (ironically Stephen King said this too).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6TRVXG4kQE
I'm not sure you read my post the way it was intended. I wasn't in need of a TL;DR.
My whole point (though admittedly tangential to the issue at hand which I already indicated I find plausible) is that it doesn't look to me like the mentioned critical acclaim could have come from nowhere - if the book doesn't sell at least a few copies it seems unlikely it would be reviewed at all, much less by prestigious critics.
Yes and no.
The critics weren't especially prestigious, at least not outside crime writing circles - this wasn't the Times Literary Supplement or the national broadsheets. They were relatively well known crime writers (rather than literary critics which is where you might smell a rat) but not people you'd know if you weren't in to crime fiction.
The level of reviewing she got is pretty much what you'd expect from a book published by a major publisher in hardback. Yes they put their weight behind it but they'd do that in all similar cases - by the time they've paid for a manuscript to be edited and published as a hardback they're going to do everything they can to get that book in front of people as they've made a significant investment.
You might even argue in this case that they'd be more likely to go easy - after all there is essentially no risk to them. If it fails all they have to do is leak that it's her and it'll shift a load so there really is no reason to go against what were presumably Rowling's wishes (particularly as she's known to be strong willed and not someone you'd want to piss off if you want to publish her again).
What sort of makes your point is that she was being published in hard back at all - a major achievement for a first time writer and if she weren't who she were handing that manuscript in she may not have been published at all, but if you make the comparison between this and any other crime hardback, there's no evidence they did anything special.
The same is true of the sales.
The article makes out that 1,500 copies was a failure. Had it been a JK Rowling book that would certainly be true, but for a couple of months sales of a hardback from an unknown crime writer. Typically a debut novel will sell a few thousand copies in hardback and given that it hadn't been out that long (a couple of months against a total hardback sales period of maybe a year) isn't unreasonable to think this might have hit a pretty solid level. To put it in context the first Harry Potter novel had a first print run of 500 in hardback.
TL;DR version: the research may be fine but there's little evidence tying what happened with Rowling to it's point.
It's a solid point. I wonder though if it being a british author (even before it was known as Rowling) and forwarded to british critics by the british arm of the publishing company may have had something to do with it. Less crime novels published in UK than larger markets perhaps?
I think you missed the point of the above comment. The point was that you wouldn't expect significant critics to have reviewed a book by a no-name author and no marketing effort. So either it wasn't critically acclaimed, it had some marketing effort (the above poster's view), or just got really lucky and caught the eyes of some reviewers.
Not just critics. :)
Maybe she didn't have to put that much weight, I think we can also consider the critics as one 'world' (in the article sense of the term). They influence each other, and if a small number of critics happen to find a novel above the average quality I can see how it could spread through their community, just like a viral novel spreads through the general public. Even more so as there are probably some links between the editors/agents and the critics, which could help bootstrap the critic-local fame (and then even a slight push by Rowling's agent/publisher can be enough to play the role of what would need to be 'luck' for regular unknown authors). What I mean is that success among the public and the critics share the same luck/quality mechanism, but independently. Of course there is some influence from the critics towards the general public (and vice versa, although less I guess) but not enough, hence the critically praised novels that still fail to sell widely.
prestigious critics Who said anything about the prestige of the critics involved? Just some critics somewhere said they liked it.
I think the "what are the chances" is the wrong way around for this case. Plenty of book review journals/ newspaper sections agree to review books of new authors before there are any sales figures, and it is not uncommon practice to send out review copies before the official publication date, because it is hard to get booksellers to stock books that either lack positive reviews or are "old" (i.e., well past official publication date).
So while it is hard for a new author to get reviewed by influential reviewers before there are sales figures, it is also the case that there are many such reviews.