Report: Saatchi Tried to Game His Book's Best-Seller Status

Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson,
in presumably happier days
(photo: dailymail.co.uk)

Charles Saatchi casts a long shadow in the global advertising game and the big-time contemporary art world. Befitting one of such stature, he published a book and shared his thoughts with a global audience. Saatchi, who understands publishing's inside game, desired best-seller status. According to a report in today's Los Angeles Times, the British ad/art maestro was not leaving his book's sales fate entirely to the vagaries of public taste. The story, noting highly public and nasty Saatchi-Nigella Lawson divorce court proceedings, cited Saatchi aides allegedly being directed to purchase their employer's books. The notion was to game the best-seller list.

There's something naive in the belief that cash purchases of a number of books could generate sufficient sales to achieve best-seller levels. It's more likely that Saatchi wanted to create "buzz" that would create the impression of a fast sales start for his tome.

More dippy than Saatchi's concern about his book's performance is the notion that anyone would care about the work's "best-seller" halo. The idea that readers' choices need to be guided by the supposed popularity of a book denigrates the quality of its prose, the substance of its ideas, the delivery of its entertainment values. You don't need an egotistical ad man's chutzpah, manufactured online "reader comments," or sales popularity charts to help you draw your own conclusions about what book makes sense for you.