Bookstrapping: Commercial books - the ‘not so literary’ cousins of highbrow literature
Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta in this week's Bookstrapping touched upon British American novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, who wrote till the ripe age of 90, sold a billion books, was a celebrated commercial writer, where her heroines tasted success due to their own intelligence and hard work. Gupta further credits commercial writers in keeping the reading habit alive and instilling value in that.
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Whenever I complete reading a book, I’m never able to answer the simple question, “Was it a good book?’ "Good for whom?," I ask right back.
I am, however, able to answer questions like ‘Is the author informative or entertaining?’ ‘Do they have a unique style?’ And perhaps my favorite question is - ‘Did you want to pick up the book again after putting it down?’
British American novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford OBE (Order of the British Empire) is an author for whom all the above answers were a 'Yes' for me. She sold nearly a billion books. Her 1979 novel, ‘A Woman of Substance,’ is one of the best-selling novels of all time. The protagonist of this book - the first in a series of eight - was a self-made retail tycoon named Emma Harte - and the multi-generational series revolves around her rags to riches story.
What Barbara Taylor-Bradford was telling her readers though the story was that her heroines succeeded ‘not because of the men in their lives but because of intelligence and hard work’.
Bookstores always placed her paperbacks out front, where the commercial books were kept. Away from the more serious, celebrated fiction writers of her time. Did she care? We don’t really know. While I don’t remember the year in which I read ‘Woman of Substance’ and a couple of its sequels, what I distinctly remember is the look of disdain I would get from people. “Aren’t you a serious reader?’ I would be asked, almost as if I had to prove it in some way by putting Bradford’s book aside.
The best justice for this ‘storyteller’ is that she minted money off her books. After all, which author would not dream to be as rich as the Queen of England?
Her most recent book, released when she was all of 90 years old, was ‘The Wonder of It All.’ It was the third book in the House of Falconer trilogy. Writing upto the ripe age of 90 is an achievement by itself, and definitely an indicator of a massive commitment. Ten of her books have been adapted into mini-series and films.
It is said that her parents supported her early desire to write, buying her a typewriter when she was just a child of 10 and introducing her to literature, opera and the theater. They did well, I would say. As for commercial writers, they have done their part in keeping the reading habit alive and their value in that is undoubted. What say Danielle Steel?
Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ On Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta
