Book Losses
According to the Travelodge hotel chain the top 10 most discarded books in their hotel rooms are...
1. The Blair Years by Alastair Campbell
2. Don't You Know Who I Am? by Piers Morgan
3. A Whole New World by Jordan
4. Wicked by Jilly Cooper
5. Dr Who Creatures & Demons by Justin Richard
6. The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown
7. I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna
8. Humble Pie by Gordon Ramsay
9. The Story Of A Man And His Mouth by Chris Moyles
10. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Mine don't sell in large enough numbers to make the list!
Interestingly in the same article in the Guardian it says that Alastair Campbell's book has sold about 55,000 copies, which means it's a long way off either recouping his advance - said to be £1 million - or making the publisher any money. It retails for £25 but the publisher sells it for around £13 on average to the booksellers meaning its earned them £715,000. With the paperback on the way they will hope to wipe out the £1m they've paid Mr.C and the costs of printing, editing and marketing the book and show a small profit. Alastair Campbell will fall way short of recouping his advance, as I understand that the serialization of the book in the newspapers was kept separate from the advance.
4 comments:
Great piece of pseudo-news publicity from Travelodge. On the Campbell book, don't you think we'd all gathered what we needed from the serialisation and other chatter. So who would bother to read the actual text?
I'm with you on all counts Heather! I think I didn't even need to read the serialization to get all I needed. I can't imagine who would buy it, actual I can, but cannot imagine many people finish it.
First of all, I'm amazed that people would just leave any book behind in a motel--especially a hardback that they could re-sell on Amazon.
Second of all, nobody would be stupid (I believe the British word is 'daft')enough to leave a Richard Havers book in a motel. Two of my most consulted books are 'Rolling with the Stones' and 'Sinatra'.
There are several HUGE books coming out in the next few years---the biggest perhaps is Keith Richards' memoirs (that will be fascinating to see what he remembers).
That's an interesting list. I can see why people might leave them behind! Never mind - I'm sure your books are READ.
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