Friday, February 29, 2008

Why do bad books happen?

JT Ellison ponders the question today on Murderati, and I commented:

I think when we get down to it, only a few people need to approve of a book in order to get it published: the author, the agent, and the editor. Many more people can disapprove of the book; the author has no say in that, and it doesn't change the fact the book was published. I've been dissatisfied with my share of books by name authors, but these get published because they will sell; that's the bottom line after all.

As for unforeseen events adversely affecting the finished product, I would think it happens more often to movies than to books: more people necessarily involved in the creative process, budget concerns, time constraints, etc.

1 comment:

pattinase (abbott) said...

From my experience in a book group where we only choose books that have already been much lauded, there are always 2-3 of the 8-10 women who dislike any one book. They find it boring, overly didactic, poorly written, too long, too padded, too violent, old-fashioned, too post-modern and so on. The only books they all liked in five or more years was Kite Runner and a book of essays by Barbara Kingsolver.