Must everything be branded? Should every activity be thrown into whirring blender of the media and recycled as a smoothie, for easy consumption by the masses? Those were my first thoughts when I read about a new Italian reality TV show called Masterpiece, on Rai 3. During the show, aspiring novelists compete for a publishing deal. They pitch their ideas to experts, read extracts from their manuscripts on air, and are given assignments, such as visiting a residence for the elderly and transforming their experiences into a story (which sounds more like local newspaper journalism to me).
But perhaps I shouldn't be shocked. As the author of six non-fiction books, I'm well aware that writers are obliged to get involved in marketing and PR if they want their works to sell. In fact, my publisher recently encouraged me to come up with a new edition of one of my books if I wanted to "keep the brand alive". The situation is undoubtedly worse in the overcrowded world of fiction. We all know what happened when a modest book by Robert Galbraith, which had sold only 1,500 copies, turned out to have been written by J.K. Rowling. I have to accept that the publishing business is now part of the entertainment industry. I also see less and less people reading books on public transport. So if a reality TV show gets a few people hooked on literature, perhaps we should be thankful.
