Authors as Celebs?

/ Joan De La Haye

Hello my Freaky Darlings,

I live in a country where there isn’t much of a celebrity culture, and most don’t know about or care about local authors. But I’ve been observing an interesting phenomenon internationally as well as locally … well … interesting to me as an author.

When people, in general, refer to celebrities they usually seem to mean actors, musicians, models, TV personalities, or people like Paris Hilton who are simply famous for being famous, but what I find interesting is that authors are usually left off that list. When watching E! (yes, I’m embarrassed to admit I do watch it sometimes) it’s all about Hollywood celebrities, but they never mention any authors. If you think about it, most of the movies that Hollywood churns out are based on novels written by the very authors they tend to ignore and whose imagination feeds their industry.  And I wonder why that is. Do authors not count? Are well-known authors, who are often stalked, not classified as celebrities? Or have I just missed something? What do you think?

Misbehave horribly!

3 thoughts on “Authors as Celebs?”

  1. I’m guessing here it’s partly because authors are not “visual” enough. Most of us are deskbunnies with questionable fashion sense, fuelled by caffeine.

    There’s nothing inherently exciting about watching an author work – gazing off into space, tapping on the keyboard a bit, scribbling on the walls, crying into our coffee…

    We’re not generally out there looking fab and wooing the media, and that’s reflected in our celebrity status. Actors and musicians and artists are connecting with audiences in a way that can feel very real and intimate (despite how untrue that is) and because of their career, tend to be a lot more…*ahem* presentable. They’re groomed for their fan sub-culture, whatever it may be, tarted up or down, on diet and funding the hairgel manufacturers.

    Do we really want to compete with that?

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