Footballers' Autobiographies
They're bad. Not everything is...
According to an article in The Sunday Times, the recent spate of high profile footballers' autobiographies have been given the boot by fans (their pun not mine!). They list the 5 most high profile books (respectively Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Ashley Cole and Rio Ferdinand) and reveal that sales, with the exception of Gerrard's book, have been sluggish.
Why this should come as much of a surprise is a surprise in itself. The books look like such blatant cash-in attempts that only the most ardent/deluded fan (delete according to taste) would bother to pay the 18.99 (or 9.99 if you're reading this here and buying on Amazon) cover price. I think it's reasonable to assume that none of them will be troubling the judges of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.
Books of this sort depend on 2 things for success. The first is to have a loyal/captive audience. Once it became apparent that Ashley Cole was leaving Arsenal, then his natural audience was gone. Of course Chelsea fans were delighted to have got one over on Arsenal fans, but that doesn't mean they've got any real affinity with Cole personally - not yet anyway and certainly not enough to buy his book. It's no surprise that the book that's doing the best in terms of sales is Gerrard's. He's the player with the stongest association with his club and that forms the bedrock for his sales. He's also arguably the most 'normal' of the players and is the one most likely to appeal to fans of other clubs.
The second componet is to be published at an opportune time. It is a depressing thought that had England performed with any degree of competence in the summer (or since) then the books probably would have sold well, despite their shortcomings. One need only think back to last summer's Ashes victory or the Rugby World Cup before that and the rash of books that followed, to know that sporting success can be a key component to sales figures.
Maybe that in itself suggests that we get what we deserve. If we're prepared to buy just because of success, then publishers may feel that they're well within their rights to churn out titles regardless of quality of content. Mind you these titles were all planned well in advance of the World Cup. Surely the deals weren't agreed on the basis that England were actually going to do well? I mean, publishers can't be that deluded can they?
My concern in all of this is that books of this type give rise to the notion that sports books are, by definition, well, crap. Of course there's plenty of rubbish out there and, if truth be told, I'd be hard pushed to offer a staunch defence of any of the above five. However just as you shouldn't judge all literary offerings by the inane ramblings of a Jade Goody or Anthea Turner (or any other "celebrity" you care to think of), neither should all sports books be judged against the delusion of premiership life.
Infact there's some exceptional new titles, particularly coming out of the States, by serious heavyweight sports authors such as Michael Lewis, John Feinstein and Tom Callahan. Back here, you need look no further than Gary Imlach's wonderful My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes to know that amongst the dross you'll still find some gems.
In the interests of fairness it should be said that at the time of writing two of the five books discussed by the Sunday Times, My Defence by Ashley Cole and Rio by Rio Ferdinand hadn't been released long enough to have gathered any meaningful sales information. Whether they'll ever be in a position to generate any meaningful sales information, I'll leave to you to decide.
About This Entry
‘Footballers' Autobiographies’ was posted by Liam Doyle on Fri, 13th October 2006 at 16:30:20 BST and filed under football.
