The Secret Life of Literature

'All publishers want to do is to sell books, not to get them actually read. Otherwise they wouldn't publish short histories of time'

I mentioned last year that I had been attending classes in the art of writing one's autobiography, given by our inspirational teacher Tristram. That was a year ago. I am afraid the autobiography is still incomplete, and that I am still attending Tristram's classes. (In fact, I sometimes wonder if I am enjoying them too much ever to get the book finished, which would be a shame, as I am now going to have to depend on the success of the book to pay back the cost of Tristram's classes...)

At our most recent class, last week, one of our number asked Tristram why there had been so many volumes of autobiography coming out at the same time – all the books by Edwina Currie, Ulrika Jonsson, and so on.

"Why are they coming out at the end of October?" he said.

"That's quite simple. Because Christmas is only six weeks away. These are the opening shots in the Christmas campaign. What every publisher dreams of is having their life story at the top of the bestseller list come Christmas, the book that everyone thinks they have to buy for everyone else. To have that happen, you have to fire the first shots in October. You get the book excerpted in the newspapers, you get it talked about, you whet the appetite for it, and then you sit back and wait for Christmas to come along.

"Of course, if the Christmas campaign is really successful, you get a lot of people buying an autobiography as a present for someone else, and then someone else putting it on one side and not reading it. So it would be quite possible to have a bestseller that nobody had read."

Wouldn't that be a bit upsetting for publishers? Max wanted to know.

"Don't be silly," said Tristram. "All publishers want to do is sell books, not get them read. Otherwise they wouldn't publish short histories of time. The strange thing is that when a publicity campaign is really successful, you feel that you have read the book whether you have or not. For instance, I feel I have already read the John Birt book, although I cannot imagine ever doing so.

"One reviewer said that Birt writes quite well about his Liverpool childhood. Well, obviously, I don't mean that Birt writes well. I can't conceive of Birt doing anything so stylish as writing well. The man is a one-man committee, and committees never write well. But it is quite conceivable that Birt has some interesting memories of Liverpool from 50 years ago. And that is the only reason I would buy a book by Birt, to read about his childhood. The rest of the book is all too predictable. The idea of buying a book to find out how someone thinks the BBC should be restructured fills me with horror, and you, too, I hope. Birt's book is nothing more or less than an index-turner."

This is a concept that Tristram has explained to us before. An index-turner is an autobiography that most people will buy because they think they may be mentioned in it – that is, they turn to the index to see if they are listed, and then buy the book if they are.

"I once knew a man," said Tristram reflectively, "who systematically drew up a list of all the people he wanted to buy his memoirs, and then put them all in the index, whether they were mentioned in the book or not. It sold very well, I believe."

"What about Anne Robinson?" asked Wilhemina. Wilhemina is a new arrival in our class. She claims to be an ordinary housewife. She also claims to want to write the life story of an ordinary housewife. Her own. Tristram has warned her that it may not be an index-turner.

"What about Anne Robinson?"

"Well, she published her life story last summer, so it obviously wasn't aimed at the Christmas market. And she told us a lot about her Liverpool childhood, like John Birt. Is it very important to have a Liverpool childhood in an autobiography? Should I have one for my book?"

"It's not necessary," said Tristram. "But then, nothing is absolutely necessary. Not even a good title."

"Surely a good title must help a bit?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" said Tristram. "But who here can remember the name of any of the books by Edwina Currie or John Birt or Ulrika Jonsson?"

And none of us could.

More of this tomorrow, I hope