You get what you pay for
Barack Obama, LeBron James, Jimmy Fallon, Reese Witherspoon… It seems like every day you hear about another celebrity pushing their new children’s book. Is this just a trend? Is it just easier for celebrities to take a manuscript to the next level? Are celebrities better writers?
Surprisingly, many of the books you see on the shelves by celebrities were not sought after by the writers themselves. They were headhunted. Publishing houses are well aware that celebrities bring in big bucks. This is why they actually spend a lot of their time asking celebrities if they would be interested in writing a book. Yes, that’s right. Many celebrities only decide to publish a book either after they are asked or when their publicist comes to them with the idea.
The most depressing part of this equation is that these books don’t even need to be any good. They just need to sell. Look at Meghan Markle’s book Bench. It is quite clear that she is not a famous poet and only has amateur prose. Nevertheless, paired up with Christian Robinson, a Caldecott awarded illustrator, and her name, it flew off the shelves. Although Meghans book got a ton of poor reviews it earned Penguin Random House a ton of money. Megan’s book displays the biggest problem with many celebrity books and that is that they have not been through the grinder. Most authors have seen countless rejections. They have written hundreds of manuscripts. Their published works have been edited numerous times. Nevertheless, the big publishing houses know that they don’t have to spend all this time with celebrities because their books sell on name alone. It’s easy money.
