Booksquare has a post up about the Kaavya Viswanathan plagiarism scandal that raises the question behind the question:
It also makes one wonder why in the world a business like Little, Brown would spend a reported $500,000 on an unwritten book by a first-time author who was starting her academic career at a famously tough university.
For a possible answer, Booksquare links to this piece at Publisher’s Weekly that suggests How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life was purchased not as a novel, but as a product: an attractive author with an interesting backstory, matched up with a “test-marketed, packaged” story.
Makes sense to me.
Update: the story gets worse…
Well, damn! There’s my problem. I’m not sexy enough, and don’t have a “backstory” to make my “package” attractive.
Gee, I’ve always bought books because I enjoyed the story and identified with at least one of the characters. Gotta get with the new wave, huh?
John
Must . . . not . . . become . . . cynical . . .