Meghan Markle released her debut children’s book, The Bench, earlier this week and reviews, thus far, have not been kind.
“It reads as if it has been penned as a self-help manual for needy parents rather than as a story to entertain small kids,” writes Alex O’Connell in The Times.
“One wonders how any publisher could have thought fit to publish this grammar-defying set of badly rhyming cod homilies, let alone think any child anywhere would want to read it,” writes Claire Allfree in The Telegraph.
It’s safe to say that The Bench won’t be winning any Critics’ Choice awards, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s doomed to languish at the bottom of the book charts.
The publishing industry is peppered with examples of badly-reviewed books that went on to become bestsellers. And as the old adage goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
One critic described The Bench as a "grammar-defying set of badly rhyming cod homilies"
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One critic described The Bench as a "grammar-defying set of badly rhyming cod homilies"
Bad book reviews can pique our curiosity. It couldn’t be that bad, we think. Likewise, they can draw our attention to books that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.
When researchers from Stanford University looked at 240 fiction book titles reviewed by The New York Times, they found that negative publicity increased sales by 45pc, so long as the author was “relatively unknown”. On the other hand, badly reviewed books by well-known authors led to a 15pc decrease in sales.
Markle isn’t a well-known author. Granted, she isn’t a ‘relatively unknown’ person either. But perhaps her loyal fan base — the so-called ‘Meyhive’ — will render the book immune to negative publicity and assure The Bench’s place at the top of the charts.
That was certainly the case for Madonna, whose first children’s book, The English Roses, was savaged by critics. “If Madonna had not written the book, it would not have been reviewed,” wrote Kate Kellaway for The Guardian. “Its interest is as an accessory for those curious about Madonna.” Nevertheless, over one million copies of the book were sold worldwide.
J.K. Rowling also benefited from her loyal following of Potterheads when she released her first book for an adult readership, and her first book since the Harry Potter series, in 2012. The Casual Vacancy wasn’t panned by critics, but it wasn’t universally praised either. Theo Tait, reviewing it for The Guardian, described it as “no masterpiece”. “But it’s not bad at all,” he added. The New York Times’ Michiko Kakutani was far less generous. “The real-life world she has limned in these pages is so wilfully banal, so depressingly clichéd that The Casual Vacancy is not only disappointing — it’s dull,” she wrote.
Everyone had an opinion on Rowling’s first grown-up novel, but even the most scathing reviews only seemed to bolster the bottom line. One million copies were sold in the first three weeks and the BBC snapped up the rights to the novel to turn it into a TV mini-series.
Other authors can remain impervious to negative reviews when they appeal to our prurient interests or subconscious desires. Take the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon and that strange time when everyone and their other was titillated by a two-dimensional, tortured billionaire by the name of Christian Grey.
“I’ve never read anything so badly written that got published,” said Salman Rushdie. “It made Twilight look like War and Peace.”
A certain type of author will always be tainted by literary snobbery, but it’s worth noting that even future classics can be savaged by critics.
The London Literary Gazette advised Moby Dick author Herman Melville not to “waste his strength on such purposeless and unequal doings as these rambling volumes about spermaceti whales”.
It’s unlikely The Bench will go down as a future classic — or even a much-loved picture book — but it just goes to show that reviews don’t always count.