Saturday 31 August 2013

J.K. Rowling, please say you wrote my book too

Have you been following the latest J.K. Rowling business?

How a book that was credited to a writer named Robert Galbraith (called I believe The Cuckoo's Calling)  turned out to have been written by J.K. Rowling.

What I find interesting is how all of a sudden, a book that wasn't setting the world on fire as far as sales went has suddenly become a global bestseller, just because it turned out to have been written by...well a global bestseller.

Now there's all sorts of discussions that could spin off this. We could talk about what it is that makes a book good or not. We could talk about the influence of the name of the writer on the perception of a book. We could talk about the criteria readers use to select the books they choose to buy (and the image of a farm animal covered in wool does come to mind). But I'm not. I've got something much more simple as the focus of this post.

This is a request to J.K. Rowling - please say that you wrote my book too.

Because if we're talking about books whose sales are not setting the world on fire, I reckon that's me in a nutshell. I suspect my book is doing exactly the opposite - what would you call it - setting the world on ice? But with the name of someone like the mighty J.K. associated with it, light the rockets and get ready for take-off.

Ok, so maybe there's the small issues of royalties, but I'm sure we could come to an arrangement on that. Maybe I could hand over some percentage. She doesn't seem to need much, so I'm sure it wouldn't be too onerous. I hear she's very into giving to charities, so that's something I'm more than happy to support.

There you have it. A sure fire way to rocket me - oops I mean her - into the bestseller lists again. So how about it, J.K? What have you got to lose? Wherever you are and whatever you're doing, why not say that you wrote my book too.

Please.