Sunday, April 2, 2017

Can Book Publishing Be A Punchline On TV?



Many late-night television shows are filled with comedians making fun of everything, from politicians and celebrities, to CEOs and professional athletes.  A lot of these shows interview authors as well.  What if we had a show that featured comedians cracking jokes about books, authors, publishers, and all of the things that relate to the book industry, writing, and hawking of books?

Can you imagine Stephen Colbert tearing into a movie studio for the way it transformed a book to the big screen?  How about an SNL skit that involved a best-selling author and her editor?  Would it be smashing to witness Samantha Bee verbally undress a publisher for its decision to pull a book back or for its decision to publish a book that society could do without?

Okay, so maybe Comedy Central executives are not running to greenlight such a show. Maybe it couldn’t even make it into a recurring bit on a show, but the concept is worth exploring.  The book world needs to laugh at itself and by having mainstream society join in the fun we may just make books cool again.

To be fair, many TV shows do their part to interview or feature authors on the air.  Noah, Maher, Colbert, and others serve the book industry well.  But there’s room for making jokes about any of the following:

·         How some books are acquired.
·         Crazy huge advances doled out to certain writers.
·         How bad a book is.
·         Scandals of a writer.
·         How too many writers can’t make a living.
·         Funny book titles that didn’t mean to endear laughter.
·         Bad book jacket copy.
·         Dumb author blog posts.

I know not all of this is funny. These can be serious issues.  But humor has a way of making us lighten up and to see the funny side of life.  Comedians joke about horrible events, abhorrent people, and monstrous moments.  They can easily throw a few zingers or one-liners about three best-selling authors who walk into a bar.

Comedy covers every aspect of our lives so why not focus on the theme of books?  After all, books tie into every aspect of life, so really the jokes could cover so much territory.  Many people in book publishing watch these late-night comedy shows because they require intellect to appreciate the jokes about current events.  It wouldn’t be such a stretch to shift some of the skits to be book-centric.

Hey, Lorne Michaels and Jimmy Fallon, did you hear the one about the book editor who…

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2017©. Born and raised in Brooklyn, now resides in Westchester. Named one of the best book marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs 

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