Famous men cashing in on children's book market??

[mids2019]

David Walliams, David Baddiel, now Ben Miller.....rich university educated men getting in on a lucrative market or simply making the most of their talent?

Personally I feel I would like my children to read books from relative unknowns (I guess JKR would have originally fitted this bracket) to allow new author to establish a career (as these guys have already had theirs)

This is Mumsnet it's our hobby to keep blaming the menz.

I agree totally. I see that Richard Ayoade has now jumped on this band wagon which has put me RIGHT off him (I literally loved him up til now).

The same goes for mainly female celebs launching perfume or beauty products lines. There are other people out there who are better qualified, have years of experience in the business - and yet sheeple will be sheeple.

I don't believe Dawn French, Celia Imrie or Fern Cotton are particularly talented writers either - they trade on their name. It's very, very tiresome.

The focus of marketing on such a few celebrity names and the monopoly on shelf space in supermarkets and station bookshops is what seems particularly damaging. It’s made worse by the fact that they all seem to adopt the same chatty, funny narrator style and are basically all the same genre of writing. Some of the authors are better than others, but they’re all smothering opportunities that could be given to a much more diverse range of voices and styles to give children more choice in what they read.
The trouble is it is vanishingly difficult to make any kind of living from writing books these days. You need a second income from somewhere. As well as having much more promotion and exposure (including free media coverage that other authors can only dream of), the celebrity authors have the advantage of the financial cushion which removes the risk involved in writing in the first place.

As well as having much more promotion and exposure (including free media coverage that other authors can only dream of), the celebrity authors have the advantage of the financial cushion which removes the risk involved in writing in the first place.

Well quite. And whilst I can sort of almost forgive (to some extent) the youngsters for blindly following names they know, it's so irritating when it's parents, who are generally a bit older, who are doing it on behalf of their children.

And what about avid and enthusiastic supporter of pornography David Baddiel writing children's books! WTF. And being invited onto Mumsnet for a lovely cosy chat about it too. Makes my stomach turn.

Announced today that Jamie Oliver and Geri Halliwell are releasing children's books. Because that's exactly what the world's been waiting for...

Fucks fucking sake.

I was just discussing this with my Mum last week. I see it as greedy. Simple as. It must be having an affect on every day authors. Every time you turn the telly on there's another Celeb hawking their books. They must know they are being self absorbed greedy fuckers, surely?

Not directly related, but there was an interview with Paul Heaton of Beautiful South on BBC Breakfast recently. He was talking about how much utter greed there is in the Music / TV Industry. He said that he personally didn't really 'need' any more money so had chosen to keep forthcoming gig tickets at around the £30 mark to make it affordable for fans.

Some of the 'big' names should he ashamed of themselves for charging hundreds.

@StrychnineInTheSandwiches Geri Halliwell wrote some children's books years ago.

The thing about comedians writing books is that comedians are already writers. They don't just stand in front of an audience or camera and see what comes out. That 6 episode half hour sketch show has just taken 3 months of sitting at a computer. They have to conjure up 'worlds' from their imaginations. They're creative people. They're also usually parents so would have read hundreds of children's books and would probably have come up with lots of spoken stories for their child. It's not a big step for a writer with children to write a children's book.

(As a wannabe comedy writer who has written children's books too. (All unwanted by everybody, but I'm still a writer!))