X Factor Writing

So Lucie has been voted off the X Factor, despite being the best female vocalist, while Jedward, unable to sing in tune 50% of the time, stay on. You'd have thought that a basic requirement of a singing competition would be to sing in tune, but Jedward's entertainment quotient presumably won the day. And you'd have thought that becoming an author would have the basic requirement of being able to write the damn novel, but it seems that's no longer the case.

When I think of how hard it is to write a novel, even how many hours it takes to simply type out 100,000 words - regardless of quality - yup, I grind my teeth when I hear some celebrity trilling on about how they 'wrote' their novel with the aid of their experienced ghost writer. But then I assume Simon Cowell, as a businessman, made his decision to reprieve Jedward based on what he thought would keep the most viewers still hooked on the X Factor and therefore make him the most money. Sometimes I think it's easy to forget that publishing is a business and authors are in the entertainment industry.

If celebrity novels make money, then that's good for everyone in publishing - authors included. IF they make money. And that's where the business plan may fall down. As publishers in the run up to Christmas churn out more celebrity offerings, perhaps they should remember that while Jedward didn't come last in the public vote, they did come next to last.