Sunday, October 7, 2018

Can We Launch A TV Show For Books?





C-Span 2 Book TV celebrates its 20th anniversary of featuring top authors speak about their books.  It has featured 15,000 authors, spanning 54,000 hours of coverage across events in 800 cities.  This is a great accomplishment for the book industry, but for one thing: hardly anyone watches.

Books deserve a bigger audience. What shows on major networks or cable TV give real time for books?  None.

Now, yes, true, shows like The Daily Show, Ellen, and The Today Show will feature interviews with authors and books.  Authors are definitely heard from. But wouldn’t it be great if they had a show dedicated to them on a regular basis?

PBS is running an eight-part series about the 100 best books, which is terrific, but it’s only eight episodes about old books. We need something on Fox TV, ABC or MSNBC that features books for an hour a day. There’s a market for such a show.  It would be inexpensive for any network to produce and it can be re-run and still be timely.

We could use a show that not only updates us on new books, including reviews and interviews, but that probes the mind of the writer and lends insight on the book world.  Let’s hear from book editors, literary agents, publishers, self-published writers, bookstores, librarians, and all of those who comprise the book ecosystem.  Their voices need to be heard!

I believe books can lead the way to a better world, if:

·         More people read more books.
·         We encourage the creation of great reading lists.
·         People read books necessary to fuel a balanced, informed, and healthy lifestyle.
·         Better books were written.
·         The truly deserving books got more publicity.

Television dedicated to books can certainly help. People are hungry for really good content, spending endless hours sifting through blogs, podcast, TV shows, radio shows, and magazine or newspaper articles looking for a greater truth, a direction towards something great, a path towards happiness.  We get caught up in too much bullshit, sideshow drama, or plain nonsense.  We easily get distracted with celebrity lives instead of living our own, with professional sports instead of playing our own games, and with politics instead of participating in reforming society.

As I write this, I’m tired from a long day and week at work.  I would love to escape to some movie or to be entertained by someone else’s drama.  But why can’t I step away from such patterns and move towards changing my life and the world?  Because even when we’re driven by our convictions or desperation or wild optimism, we still tire, stress out, or suffer defeats that seem to lead us to seek out anything but what we need most:  to read a good book and let it empower us to take positive action.  

Maybe a TV show on books can lead the way.


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Brian Feinblum’s insightful views, provocative opinions, and interesting ideas expressed in this terrific blog are his alone and not that of his employer or anyone else. You can – and should -- follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels much more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2018. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester. His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s Independent.  This was named one of the best book marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. Also named by WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” He recently hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America and participated in a PR panel at the Sarah Lawrence College Writers Institute Conference.

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