Magician, illusionist, clown over the years, Boris Johnson has been called all of these names, thanks to his clumsy routine and taste for stunts, rhetoric and subterfuge. The difference between a magician and a thief is that only one of them returns your watch. The difference between a magician and Boris Johnson is more complicated. Magic makers are generally harbingers of pleasure, who depend on a form of permission: we know that a clown is going to surprise or deceive us, and we wait for him to do so. With Johnson, our voluntary participation in the tour diminishes. If he's a clown, he's the one who shows up at the party uninvited and somehow manages to leave with a paycheck.
A few weeks ago, Johnson's memoir Unchained became a number one Sunday Times bestseller. This tag has the makings of success but, like a magic trick, things are not quite what they seem. Unchained topped the list in its first week, selling 42,528 copies. In the second week, that number dropped to 15,945; this weekend, its sales would have fallen again to 8,370. Despite the fanfare and publicity that surrounded his memoir, these numbers will likely be a disappointment to Johnson's publisher.
A book can become a Sunday Times bestseller and still make a loss. When Unchained was acquired last year, various newspapers reported that Johnson's lead was 510,000. This was not true, or at least, not in the way the news predicted. Yes, Johnson had received 510,000, as recorded in the Register of Members of Parliament's Interests, but book advances are usually divided into four equally proportionate installments: upon signing the contract; delivery of the manuscript; first publication (usually hardback); second publication (paperback). If he received a single payment of 510,000, that would mean his advance would be at least 2 million. To break even, its publisher would need Unchained being not only one of the greatest non-fiction books of the year but also of the last decade.
A publisher's advance is calculated through a complex series of calculations, taking into account sales forecasts for print editions, as well as e- and audiobooks. They'll evaluate all of this by taking into account marketing costs and advertising potential, as well as printing costs, warehouse storage, expected return rates, and what they might earn by serializing the book. There are other factors to consider, but I'm trying to keep your attention here.
When the public thinks about the economics of publishing, they may think of royalties where a percentage of each book sale goes to the author, but many authors never reach that point. First, you need to earn your lead. This means selling enough books that your publisher has recouped the advance. That's not to say that when publisher Johnson sold 66,666 hardbacks at age 30, he hit that 2 million figure. Only an author's share of a book is deducted from these 2 minutes. We could talk about 3 per book sale. Suddenly the descent to zero feels like quite a journey. Even presenting it like this is a simplification. Each book will involve its own conversation and reckoning. What I can it's that the photo doesn't look good for Unchained.
How could the calculations have been so wrong? Well, consumers are never entirely predictable and reviews are fallible. (I also suppose that price increases can arise during a wave of competition between publishers to win the rights to a book.) But perhaps more importantly, Boris Johnson is involved. This man is a king of boosterism. Its popularity has always been exaggerated. But this memoir comes at a time in his career when his public is most wary.
Rather than responding to fatigue and skepticism with something more authentic, the book seems to be unashamedly rose-tinted about his performance as Prime Minister, with its usual hodgepodge of basic pop culture and a degree in classic letters. Despite its cover mimicking the gravitas of Barack Obama's memoir, most reviewers struggled to find content in this book. UnchainedIt is almost 800 pages long. The illusionists' smoke machine has been closely examined and it appears to be producing hot air.
The publishing ecosystem protects against commercial errors and protects individual books from participating in a gambling game: one book compensating for another. Commercial fiction, for example, is commonly seen as a safeguard against literary fiction. Publishing is a constant balancing act between business and art. If publishers only wanted to make money, they would trade for a more reliable and valuable asset. Publishing professionals do what they can to publish books that people want to read, or to publish them in a way that consumers are convinced of their choice. But what drives this process remains largely a mystery. If a book doesn't make money, a publisher generally doesn't wish they hadn't acquired it, they regret that it hasn't yet found its readers.
But in the case of a celebrity's memoir, beyond the praise of being THE publisher of the big book of the season, they will want to profit from it. Books like Unchained are intended to strengthen the edition. It is inevitable that Johnson's book will fail to serve its purpose. Rather than the dazzle of a conjurer's trick, it's more like the groaning after hearing a cracker's joke. How could we have guessed that a system run with care and thought, driven by the ambition to do something worthwhile, could be hampered by the presence of Boris Johnson?
Rebecca Watson's new novel, I Will Crash, is published by Faber
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