Kim Wilkins - Writing Bestsellers: Love, Money, and Creative Practice

While the term bestseller explicitly relates books to sales,

WILKINS

commercially successful books are also products of individual

Writing Bestsellers

creative work. This Element presents a new perspective on

AN

the relationship between art and the market, with particular

d B

Love, Money, and Creative

reference to bestselling writers and books. We examine some

ENNETT

existing perspectives on arts relationship to the marketplace

Practice

to trouble persistent binaries that see the two in opposition; we

break down the monolith of the marketplace by thinking of it

as made up of a range of invested, non-hostile participants such

as publishing personnel and readers; we articulate the material

dimensions of creative writing in the industry through the

words of bestselling writers themselves; and we examine how

Writing Bestseller

the existence of bestselling books and writers in the world of

letters bears enormous infuence on the industry, and on the

practice of other writers.

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Cambridge Elements in Publishing and Book Culture

Series Editor:

Samantha Rayner

University College London

Associate Editor:

Leah Tether

University of Bristol

Publishing and Book Culture

Bestsellers

Kim Wilkins

ISSN 2514-8524 (online)

ISSN 2514-8516 (print)

Elements in Publishing and Book Culture

edited by

Samantha Rayner

University College London

Leah Tether

University of Bristol

WRITING BESTSELLERS

Love, Money, and Creative Practice

Kim Wilkins

University of Queensland

Lisa Bennett

Flinders University

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108725637

DOI: 10.1017/9781108663724

Kim Wilkins and Lisa Bennett 2021

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First published 2021

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ISBN 978-1-108-72563-7 Paperback

ISSN 2514-8524 (online)

ISSN 2514-8516 (print)

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Writing Bestsellers

Love, Money, and Creative Practice

Elements in Publishing and Book Culture

DOI: 10.1017/9781108663724

First published online: September 2021

Kim Wilkins

University of Queensland

Lisa Bennett

Flinders University

Author for correspondence: Kim Wilkins,

Abstract: While the term bestseller explicitly relates books to

sales, commercially successful books are also products of

individual creative work. This Element presents a new

perspective on the relationship between art and the market,

with particular reference to bestselling writers and books. We

examine some existing perspectives on arts relationship to the

marketplace to trouble persistent binaries that see the two in

opposition; we break down the monolith of the marketplace by

thinking of it as made up of a range of invested, non-hostile

participants such as publishing personnel and readers; we

articulate the material dimensions of creative writing in the

industry through the words of bestselling writers themselves;

and we examine how the existence of bestselling books and

writers in the world of letters bears enormous influence on the

industry, and on the practice of other writers.

This Element also has a video abstract: www.cambridge.org/

writingbestsellers

KEYWORDS: bestsellers, creativity, writing, publishing, mutualism

Kim Wilkins and Lisa Bennett 2021

ISBNs: 9781108725637 (PB), 9781108663724 (OC)

Contents

Introduction

The Bestselling Writer Paradox

Behind the Magicians Curtain

Bestselling Writers and Their Influence on Industry

Conclusion

Bibliography

Writing Bestsellers

Introduction

James Patterson writes books. So does Nora Roberts. Danielle Steel writes them on an old typewriter; George R. R. Martin uses a DOS-based word-processing application called Wordstar. Each of them, along with every other bestselling writer on Forbes lists, is a flesh-and-blood human located within a specific set of social and material relations, engaged in the mental and physical labour of getting ideas out of their imaginations and onto a page. While the term bestseller explicitly relates books to sales, commercially successful books are also products of individual creative work: that is,

bestsellers are people as much as products. Our interest lies in the material conditions of writers and their creative writing, and specifically the influence of the market on the creation of new works. This Element therefore presents a new perspective on the relationship between art and the market, with particular reference to bestselling writers and books.

The view that art (conceived broadly) and commerce are uncomfortably related is a widely held one. According to A. O. coined the term hostile worlds

to describe a view that advocates a division between sacred/intimate and profane/instrumental spheres because, essentially, money can contaminate, trivialise, and/or devalue the meaning of private pleasures. Building on Zelizers work, Olav Velthuis writes at length about the hostile worlds

view and the detrimental effects of the confrontation between the logic of the arts and the logic of capitalist markets (: 25). But what if we put aside for a while the notion that art is delicate or corruptible or vulnerable to strip-mining? What if we imagine

Publishing and Book Culture

it is not only robust enough to withstand commercial pressure, but that it also has the potential to adapt and be energised by it, or even to shape commercial processes?

In Australia, where we live, bushfires engulf eucalypt forests every year.

But after a fire, eucalypt forests thrive. And it isnt simply that the trees have adapted to fiery conditions; they are an active participant in those conditions, with their papery bark, crackling leaf fall, and combustible oil. When a conflagration roars through the forest, it looks to the casual observer like annihilation. Fire is ferocious, powerful, difficult to reckon with. Yet, soon enough thick green shoots appear on the black trunks and the understory bristles with saplings. Fire changes the forest, but that change is not wholly (or even necessarily) negative. Could art works in this case, stories be similarly resilient, working with the forces of the market rather than being subject to the markets predation?